original post 2/28/14 updated 7/2023 As I write about life insurance policies for low stage melanoma, I know you folks in the northeast are not thinking about skin cancer right now. You are likely focused on the never ending thunderstorms, flooding and Canadian wildfire smoke. My prayers go out to you. Here in the southwest we are heading deeper into drought and looking at the potential of another hot, dry summer. For us, the happening news is that underwriting for life insurance policies for low stage melanoma, seems to be improving daily. Exciting life here, huh? OK. OK. A bit of an exaggera ..read more

I was recently working on quotes for pilot life insurance for a client of mine a few days ago when he called and said a pilot co-worker and friend told him that a AOPA, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association insurance agent, had given him quotes on their group policy that were lower than what I had quoted. They are both AOPA members, so this didn’t surprise me as associations like this should be making accessibility to member benefits like term life insurance plans easier to obtain. My client and his friend, who are both in good health, fly helicopters ferrying passengers and freight to offsho ..read more

Wouldn’t that be nice? Kind of like the Progressive commercials where every kind of insurance is in a separate box. “Here’s your perfect private pilot life insurance. Will that be all today?” Does Your Life Insurance Agent Really Understand Private Aviation? Probably not! It would be simple if somehow you could get rid of all of the life insurance agents who claim to know what they’re doing with private pilots, but don’t really. Life insurance is one of those occupations that I’m finding has employed nearly everyone at some point, but very few careers are made here. New life insurance agents a ..read more

What Do The People You Love Want Their Future to Look Like? I met a young man the other day. He’s 16 and is pursuing a dream with a focus I’ve rarely seen in someone that age. He’s six months in to getting his private pilot license through classes at his school. He also attends leadership training camps around the country that are flying focused. His goal? He wants to be a military pilot and eventually an airline pilot. I was so impressed with the planning he and his parents had put in place for him to achieve his goal, his dream. While not everyone has that kind of singular focus, all of us h ..read more

We All Know Someone, Right? If you haven’t experienced the premature death of a friend or family member, it’s coming. How about a friend of a friend or someone you hear or read about on social media? Do you ever stick with the story long enough to know how those who were left behind pick up the pieces of their shattered life? That’s right, shattered! I’ve been beating this drum for the last 25 years, but really drop yourself in this scenario and think about what shattered looks like. You’re married and have children. If both of you work, you probably need both incomes. Hey, today there are a l ..read more

How Depression Affects Life Insurance We live in a country that was anxious, arguably for good reasons, even before the coronavirus pandemic. In a lot of cases anxiety can lead to depression and the severity of the depression is what life insurance companies look at. Lumped together, anxiety, minor depressive disorder and major depressive disorder affects nearly a quarter of the adults in the country. About half of those are medically treated for their challenge. Life insurance companies take these five areas into consideration when underwriting depression: Have you ever been hospitalized for ..read more

Level term life insurance is a type of life insurance that lasts a predetermined number of years (the “term”) and is fairly straightforward. Under a level term life insurance policy, you pay premiums for coverage and the insurer provides a death benefit to your loved ones if you die during the term. Whether you pass away in the third year or 23rd year of your 30-year policy, your beneficiaries will get paid the same amount. If you live longer than the term, the policy expires, and you cease paying for it. Level Term vs. Whole Life Insurance Whole life insurance is the most common form of perma ..read more

I wrote this post 4 years ago and there have been changes in business life insurance and specifically the SBA requirements, so here’s an update. Hope it helps. All the best. Business Life Insurance Proving Hard To Get? Let’s Change That Just because someone is the CEO of a large company, or owner of a smaller company, doesn’t make them immune from the same challenges that you or I run into when trying to purchase life insurance. Those in need of business life insurance cover the full spectrum of impairments – from being overweight or having diabetes to having a history of drug or alcohol treat ..read more

It’s been 10 years since I wrote this post. A lot has changed in how life insurance companies view gestational diabetes. Some worse and some in the right direction. I hope bringing this up to date will be helpful. All the best. What’s The Fuss Over Gestational Diabetes? The reason for gestational diabetes life insurance underwriting concern are studies that, while life insurance companies are all over the map, do show that gestational diabetes can increase the chances of a woman developing type 2 diabetes 5 to 10 years post pregnancy. The reason studies and life insurance underwriters are on b ..read more

I wrote this post about 10 years ago. That was just a few years after my mother went through diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer and it gave me a whole new awareness of the aspects like stage and grade and treatment options. I hope updating the information (and correcting some typos) will be useful to you. All the best. Life Insurance After Surviving Breast Cancer For anyone who might have followed that series of posts that lasted about a year, my mom was 85 at the time and was really in no need of life insurance. It was the detection, pathology, and treatment that gave me relevant facto ..read more