Dart Folk

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. this week said it would
offer life insurance to women with certain types of early stage
breast cancer at the same rates as healthy women, reflecting
increased coverage for individuals with medical conditions that
would have been roadblocks to insurance several years ago.
To make such policies feasible, insurers are looking beyond
mortality tables to clinical medical underwriting, which takes
into account medical advances. The demand for “impaired risk
insurance” is expected to increase as baby boomers age and
medical advances turn once-deadly conditions into chronic
illnesses. “Most people are insurable,” said Matt McAvony,
president of Target Insurance Services in Overland Park, Kan.,
and chair-elect of the National Association of Independent Life
Brokerage Agencies. “Most people can get an offer to buy
insurance.” Hartford said its new coverage is available to
women who have been treated for the first time for “small,
well-differentiated, localized Stage 1 breast cancer and have a
strong prognosis for survival based on the results of common
tests.” Hartford estimates that 100,000 women who were
treated during the last five years for breast cancer meet the
guidelines for its new insurance, representing about 15% of the
women diagnosed with stage-one breast cancer. “We see it as
an affirmation of the progress made in the clinical area,” said
Ann Hoven, chief medical director for the Hartford, Conn.,
company’s Individual Life Division. She said that Hartford
routinely monitors clinical research about serious illnesses,
and since 1991, deaths from breast cancer have dropped 20%
because of early detection and improved treatment. After
conducting its own research Hartford decided it could offer this
new insurance, which would significantly decrease the cost of
life insurance for a woman. For example, a 50 year-old woman
who had been treated for stage-one breast cancer previously
would have had to pay $1,500 over a year plus an additional
$2,500 annually for five years. Now, women who meet the new
underwriting guidelines would pay only $1,545 a year. An
estimated 5% to 10% of the insurance-buying population has a
medical condition that may make their insurance priced beyond
standard. That number likely will grow as baby boomers age and
medical advances enable patients to live long lives despite a
serious medical condition. “I’m insuring people today who
had prostate cancer six years ago, people who years ago, we
wouldn’t have touched,” said Jack Fischer, who owns Amsterdam
Financial, an independent financial-services firm in Chicago.
The firm specializes in securing insurance for impaired risk
cases. “We have more knowledge, more comparisons, more
statistics, more years have gone by with positive results,” said
Mr. Fischer. U.S. Financial Life Insurance Co. in Cincinnati
sells only impaired risk insurance and has grown annually since
it was established 15 years ago. It provides coverage for
individuals with, among other things, cancer, heart disease and
diabetes. U.S. Financial takes a multipronged approached when
evaluating potential policyholders and considers whether a
person is living a healthy lifestyle and following a doctor’s
orders. The company, a subsidiary of AXA Financial Inc.,
sells the policies through life-insurance agents rather than
directly to the public. “I think many people believe they
can’t get life insurance is because of a medical condition, and
that was true years ago, but not today,” said Hartford’s Ms.
Hoven, who compared the new insurance with changes that occurred
about a decade ago for patients with a history of heart attacks.
Mr. Fischer encouraged people with medical conditions to
find agents who are knowledgeable about impaired-risk Insurance.
“You really want someone who has done it and understands it
before they write you up,” he said. For more information about
Amsterdam Financial LLC, call (312) 440-0600 or visit
www.AmsterdamFinancial.com Published: The Wall Street Journal,
October 7th, 2005