Getting The Most and Paying The Least for Life Insurance

The Smart Way To Shop for Life Insurance

If you go about obtaining life insurance with a careful plan, and you understand a couple of things, you will greatly increase your chances of getting a very good life insurance plan without having to pay a fortune for it.

Life insurance happens to be an extremely competitive marketplace and this works in your favor, but you must understand how the game is played.  Without question the best place to begin searching for life insurance is on the internet because you can get rates from dozens of companies practically within seconds.  But the life insurance information you will be able to retrieve over the internet (or elsewhere, for that matter) will not be of much value you to you unless you have a very good idea of what your rating class is.

Why is is important to be able to predict my rating class is before I get life insurance?

Before I answer this question directly, let me make a statement and back around to it.  To some extenet people are their own worst enemy when it comes to shopping for life insurance.  Here's why: people generally grossly overestimate their level of health, or they base their judgment it on subjective criteria like how they are presently feeling.  This is relevant because you must select your health category before getting an online life insurance quote.  There is about a 60% chance that you will qualify for the category that is one or two steps below they one you picked when you filled out the quote form!  Life insurance companies know this and will have very attractive rates for people who they regard as being in perfect health.  But just because one company offers a great rate for the preferred plus health class does not mean that it will be competitive in the health class that you might qualify for.  What happens to many people, however, is that they start the application process with the company that offers the best rate that they hope to qualify for, and then complete the process even though they company they chose does not offer the most competitive rate that they acutally qualified for.  If you start with a good idea of what class you will probably qualify for, then you can compare life insurance rates in that class and pick your company on that basis.

How do I predict my rating class?

If you've had any recent blood or urine tests, this can be used.  You can also talk to your life insurance agent who should hopefully know the criteria you need to meet for preferred plus, preferred, standard, etc.  There is also a section on Beyond Quotes that goes over this.  Some of the information like height, weight, and maybe even blood pressure is something you should already know.  If you haven't tested either your blood or urine recently, you can simply go get these tests doen.  You might want to pay for them out of your own pocket.  Even though you might want this information for the purposes of obtaining life insurance, it's not bad to know anyway.

What if some of the results of my blood or urine test fall outside normal parameters?

Hopefully you followed all medical instructions before taking the tests.  If you didn't, your results might not be accurate, and you might want to take the tests again.  But if you did follow the instructions to the letter and you are reasonably certain that the results are accurate, you might simply want to improve your health.  If you smoke stop.  If you are overweight, improve your diet and excercise more.  If you have high cholesterol, eat oatmeal and consult with your doctor.  Not only will you live longer, more importantly, you will save money on your life insurance.

Once you take control of the life insurance underwriting process you can get the rate you want, and hopefully live longer in the bargain!