How to Ace Your Life Insurance Exam

Although you have no control over your personal characteristics and certain health factors, you can take steps to make your life insurance application stronger by improving the conditions in which your insurance exam is administered.

Ace your life insurance exam with these tips:

• If you need a paramedical exam, schedule it for the morning. Blood pressure and heart rates are generally lower in the morning.
• Avoid alcohol within 24 hours of your exam, smoking within eight hours and exercising that morning—all can increase blood pressure.
• Fast for at least eight hours before your exam, unless you are diabetic or have another health condition that prevents fasting. Failure to fast affects cholesterol levels in your blood.
• If you are a smoker or use other forms of tobacco, you must quit seven to 10 days before your exam to prevent nicotine from showing up in your bloodstream.
• Get plenty of rest and fluids the day before your exam. If you do not feel well that day, reschedule your exam.
• Pay attention to what you wear and carry. Shoes, cell phones, heavy wallets and belt buckles can all add up to several unneeded pounds! And Mom is right—stand up straight—the taller you are relative to your weight, the lower your body mass index (BMI).
• Answer all questions completely and truthfully. If you make a misrepresentation on your policy, the insurer retains the right to challenge payment of benefits within the policy’s first two years. After the policy has been in force for two years, the policy becomes “incontestable.” At that point, the insurer would have to prove that you knowingly made misstatements or intentionally omitted material information to get coverage.

If you have weight or other health conditions that prevent you from finding life, disability or other insurance coverages, you can still find coverage with those insurers who specialize in certain types of “higher risk” coverages (also referred to as “impaired risk” or “substandard risk” coverage).