July 19, 2009

Life Insurance Rates and Other Underwriting Policies (Part 1)

Some of us haven’t been exposed to life insurance policies hence find it a crucial aspect to understand. But it is not so crisscrossing. Insurance is easy affair in which you simply plan suitable life insurance rates for setting standard premium besides having complete information about the chosen policy.

Some of us assume insurance like finding needle in a mountain of haystacks from backyard. That is why many genuine insurance policy holders get confused of such intricacies and don’t comprehend. This is the primary reason that insurance agents or representatives should be properly trained. They must have convincing power and ability to work as insurance underwriters.

Every insurance agent should be well trained to understand and simplify typical financial jargons and terminologies. This is important for making a layman understand the benefits in fullest manner. Besides this they should also reply various questions asked by the masses who are prospective policy holders.

At the very beginning this article evaluates some basic underwriting processes which most of the insurance companies follow. Such basic underwriting processes are applicable to the term life, term life insurance cost and universal life insurance policies.

No matter what are the diverse areas but insurance underwriters touch lives of each of them while preparing rules and regulations which remains universal. They help the costumers to evaluate life insurance rates and their benefits on maturity which is described in policy documents.

Usually most of the life insurance companies follow three basic underwriting processes. They are a) Preliminary Processing b) Risk Appraisal c) Policy Issuance

Initial agreement between proposed policy holder and insurance underwriter/agent/representative should be briefed properly before starting first step of agreement. The crux of the matter is that terms and conditions of insurance policy must be explained. No question should be left unanswered and life insurance rates are briefed satisfactorily. This process will make entire affair easy and a policy holder will comprehend everything systematically. Once you are thorough this process apply next step of contract signing.

The policy holder may be different from the insured.  In most cases, the policy holder or the one who pays for the insurance policy is the same as the one insured.  Yet there are also cases where the policy holder is insuring (insured) the other person.  This is where the term insurable interest comes in.

Preliminary Processing. Applications are screened at first instance to find out completeness. Checking details like answers of different questions are important. Checking signature is crucial. Once this phase is over an underwriter decides the fat of application by checking underwriting limits. Such process is applicable in affordable term life insurance applications too.

Then, the head office to where the underwriter belongs would verify the status and code of the underwriter to see if the agent is qualified to underwrite this type of an application.  Because as in most states a separate license is needed for life insurance and another license is needed for variable universal life (VUL).

In the next phase careful processing is done through giving an identification number to the application for quality control and purpose description. This number is converted into policy number later to be issued to a policy holder. Such number gets entered into the computer system with total details.

Insurer Companies use information gathered in the form to crosscheck exact identity of the person to be insured. Checking medical history of that person is done by Medical Information Bureau (MIB). This investigation finally decides insurance rate as premium amount. By now cheap life insurance rates that was briefed to you earlier changes and new rates depend upon the result of that particular investigation.

All these procedures are done so that errors on the part of the applicant or the proposed policy holder/insured as well as with the insurance company could be avoided.  Mistakes happen where the insured does not get anything or the insurance company pays the claim where it should not have done in the first place.  In all of these mistakes precious dollars would be involved.

Life insurance is not that very difficult to understand and comprehend.  It just takes an ounce of effort to really get to know some of them including life insurance rates and the basic underwriting policies.

Filed under Insurance by david

Spread the Word!

Permalink Print Comment

Leave a Comment