It's
in the news and seems to pop up in
commercials every five minutes...the
warnings and apparent medication fixes
for elevated cholesterol. Needless
to say, cholesterol has an impact on
your life insurance eligibility and
perhaps more importantly, your
life
insurance rate. Let's look a
little closer at how cholesterol
readings affect your life options.
First, why is cholesterol important to
life insurance anyway? Anything
that has a bearing on life insurance
eligibility must tie in with mortality
rates.
Mortality rates are
essentially the odds of passing away at
a given age based on certain demographic
information (area, health status, etc).
If a habit, health status, or attribute
affects this mortality rate based on
historical data, the life insurance
company is going to be very interested.
Think
of elevated or skewed cholesterol as a
common bedfellow with heart-related and
arterial diseases. Over the last
few decades, it has become apparent that
higher total cholesterol, elevated LDL
(the bad cholesterol) and the ratio
between LDL and total cholesterol have a
statistically relevant correlation with
heart disease, heart attacks, strokes
and other cardio-pulmonary diseases.
We don't really need to know what the
reason is for this correlation...just
that it exists. Cholesterol is one
of those issues that may go on for
decades unchecked. This
accumulated damage can lead to problems
later on. It's not uncommon to
have a person find out they have
elevated cholesterol as the result of
the
paramedical exam that constitutes
part of the life insurance enrollment
process. We've had surprised
reactions such as "I don't have high
cholesterol!" only to show the results.
Cholesterol requires a blood test
(usually while fasting to get a more
accurate reading). It's important
to address elevated cholesterol with
your doctor for health reasons, but
let's look at how life insurance
companies will view it.
Each
carrier will have different requirements
for cholesterol readings. Life
insurance is actually more lenient
regarding total cholesterol than most
health insurance carriers. Health
carriers usually want total cholesterol
under 200. Life insurance
companies are typically satisfied under
240. It's possible to qualify for
the best health class with a reading
under 240 (assuming healthy in other
regards). As you go up from here,
the
health class will adjust which
essentially means you will pay a higher
rate. You can expect (other health
issues being equal) that a higher tier
will be triggered from 240-259 and then
another tier from 260-279. It
might be difficult to qualify for life
insurance with cholesterol over 280 but
contact us to see if there are options
we can use in such a situation such as
no medical life insurance. There
are new options available to address
such a situation.
The
life insurance companies also look at
your HDL (high density lipid) to total
cholesterol ratio. HDL's are the
good cholesterol which have more of a
protective effect within limits.
If a higher percentage of your total
cholesterol is derived from HDL's as
opposed to LDL's (low density lipid),
then that is beneficial. For the
best health class, you typically want
the ratio of total cholesterol to be
less than 5 times the HDL's. The
next health class down requires this
ratio to be below 6.5 times.
Beyond 7.5 times, it becomes more
difficult to qualify for standard life
insurance plans.
These
are two main cholesterol components that
impact life insurance: total
cholesterol and the ratio of total
cholesterol to HDL's. With
non medical life insurance plans and the
newly created hybrid plans, we may be
able to find alternative options to
address your particular situation.
With extensive knowledge of the carriers
underwriting requirements and
guidelines, we can help help you find
life insurance options that work better
with your current cholesterol make-up.
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