When a woman becomes a mother everything in her life changes. Everything in her world becomes about her child. While mothers are nursing cuts and scrapes, whipping up an amazing home-cooked meal for their family or providing counsel to their daughter’s broken heart after a breakup, they too often neglect the basic necessity of taking care of their own health and wellbeing.

“Women are so concerned taking care of their husbands and children they put their well-being last and they are too busy or too embarrassed or don’t want to inconvenience anyone to call 911 if they are feeling symptoms,” says Lisa Townsend, director of Sister-to-Sister, The Women’s Heart Health Foundation, a non-profit organization located in Chevy Chase, Md. that is dedicated to raising awareness about heart disease in women.

“Women have to be healthy to take care of their own family. Women keep the family going and keep the family glued together, so they should not to hesitate to seek screening and medical care if they think they are at risk for heart attack,” Townsend says.

This Sunday is Mother’s Day and while children everywhere will be celebrating the most important woman in their life, there are a number of health risks concerning women that are often overlooked or poorly reported in the media. In order to prevent the most common threats that may increase mortality and impact their life insurance rates, they first must recognize the most serious health risks affecting them.

The number one killer of women in the United States is Heart Disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2011, The American Heart Association reported that heart disease and stroke caused 2,200 deaths of both men and women in the United States. Women Heart, The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease reported that one third of women have died from heart disease in the U.S., according to a 2010 report from The American Heart Association Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee.

A common misconception is that breast cancer is the most life-threatening illness that women and their doctors must keep a watchful eye on. However, more than 200,000 women die of heart attack every year.

“A lot of women don’t know heart disease is the number one killer of women and not men,” says Townsend.

Sister to Sister offers a guide for women “Smart for the Heart” that provides a heart risk health assessment.

WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease based in Washington D.C. offers advice on heart disease prevention and early detection.

Townsend adds that women really think that breast cancer is their greatest risk, but to put this in perspective, recent statistics show that one in 30 women will die of breast cancer, while one and three women will die of heart disease.

It’s a sobering fact that more than 200,000 women lose their lives due to a heart attack and 432,000 women die of cardiovascular disease each year. In fact, heart attacks cause five times as many deaths as breast cancer in women each year. Women who are smokers are also three times more likely to die from a heart attack.

There are seven risk factors for cardiovascular disease and weight is related to all of them.  A lack of physical activity, poor diet, cholesterol, blood pressure, high glucose levels and high sodium intake already contribute to the risk of having a major cardiac event. When smoking is added to the mix, the result can be fatal. Unfortunately, the AHA concludes that women are less likely to receive the proper treatment for a heart attack than men.

Brian Ashe, CLU, and Treasurer of the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (LIFE) and owner of Brian Ashe & Associates, Ltd. in Lisle, Ill. says that when it comes to rating life insurance policies for women, two things should be considered: getting a policy while still relatively young (in their 30s and 40s) and if there’s a serious health problem doing whatever it takes to maintain the condition and get your health back on track.

“If a woman has a heart attack and she will likely recover and she’s doing well, carriers might not any interest in writing insurance for the first couple of years, but this is only if the attack was mild and her blood pressure and cholesterol are under control,” Ashe says.

After the one to two-year waiting period, Ashe says that the policy would still have a Table rating of 2 to 4. This is an extra amount of premium they might pay for a serious pre-existing health condition when they apply for life insurance coverage.

“Through the passage of time and with continued good health the policy could be re-reviewed and go back to standard,” Ashe adds.

The key to preventing higher health and life insurance rates is not to develop a heart condition to start with. While women and men are both at risk for having a heart condition, heart disease is still highly preventable.

“Heart disease is the only serious illness that is reversible and preventable. In fact, 82 percent of women can lower their risk factors for heart disease by just leading a healthy lifestyle,” Townsend says.

For women between 40 and 60 years of age that have risk factors for heart disease, a lot of those factors can be controlled by reducing salt intake, enhancing physical activity, taking their medications to lower cholesterol and blood pressure and reducing stress.

An Ounce of Prevention: A chat with Jackie Warner on how diet and fitness can help women stay healthy

The top causes of heart disease are all avoidable: smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke, eating saturated fats high in cholesterol, eating processed foods, high blood pressure, poor stress management and a sedentary lifestyle, so the best approach is to eat right and exercise.

Jackie Warner is best known as the no-nonsense celebrity personal fitness trainer. Considered the foremost fitness expert in her field, Warner has helped to shape and reshape and strengthen and tone some of Hollywood’s most famous names.  Warner is also the star of Bravo’s “Workout” and “Thintervention” has a line of health and wellness products (including an Omega balance supplement, metabolism enhancing water boosters, a balanced vitamin, vanilla bean whey protein powder, a craving control bar, and a jump rope called Jump! The Ultimate Rope).  She is the author of several books and DVD’s about exercise and fitness. In other words, Warner walks the walk and talks the talk.

Her latest book “10 Pounds in 10 Days” recently made April’s New York Time’s bestseller list and in this book she proves that you don’t have to be a celebrity to get fit and healthy and you can do it in half the time it would normally take, with just a touch of discipline and making a few life changes.

“Heart health and a healthy diet and exercise go hand in hand,” Warner says. “The body was not made not meant to be sedentary on any given day, you have to get up and start moving and you have to feed it the fuel it needs to keep moving. It doesn’t matter what your age is, a healthy weight can be maintained if you follow the proper regimen and don’t cheat.”

According to Warner, 70 to 85 percent of her book tackles the proper diet and nutrition for losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight.

“The book is actually a 30-day program broken into 10-day phases and you eat what I tell you to eat and when I tell you to eat it,” Warner says. “The foods in my book have been handpicked, researched and chosen by me and that is why I call them ‘superstar’ foods. They provide the best vitamins and the best nutritional benefit.”

Some of the superstar foods include apples, which Warner says are fantastic for reducing cholesterol. She says there is a lot of misinformation in the media about what people should be eating, which includes differing opinions about fish. Out of all of the types of fish that will provide the most nutritional benefit, she says salmon is the best choice. If you are training and in search of good protein, she says a better option is eating eggs.  She says avoid white flours, white breads, white rice, cookies, pretzels, crackers and croutons.

“Eggs are the purest protein you can have and it has been proven that there was a significant cholesterol drop when two eggs a day were added to your diet. Also, the lecithin found in eggs is a major fat burner and inhibits cholesterol absorption in the blood,” Warner says.

Advice for new mothers

Warner says pregnant women need to be working out and conditioning their body five days a week.

“For two reasons: Pregnancy goes smoother and they lose body weight more effectively when it comes to losing fat in the abdominal area,” Warner says.

However, she warns, no weight-bearing or crunch exercises.

Some of Jackie Warner's "Superfoods"

(Preferably organic)
Apples
Asparagus
Beans
Blueberries
Broccoli
Baby Carrots (Baby Size)
Chicken breast
Lowe-fat cottage cheese, 1 percent
Eggs (Free-range)
Greek Yogurt (low-fat)
Oatmeal (Plain)
Oranges
Potatoes
Peaches
Peanut butter (all-natural, sugar free)
Brown rice
Salmon
Spinach
Sweet Potatoes
Tomatoes
Turkey breast
Watercress
Green tea

For more, go to Jackie Warner’s official website.

Source: www.jackiewarner.com

Advice for working mothers

Recent studies found that exercising three times a week is not effective to maintaining and changing your body. A big problem with exercise program is not sticking with it if you don’t see changes within a couple of weeks.

“In all my year’s of training, if clients didn’t drop two sizes in two weeks they started sabotaging themselves,” Warner says. “Often they set unrealistic goals for themselves. If they don’t see a difference in their body in short amount of time and regardless of whether they feel healthier, it didn’t matter because they quit the program. This is why you have to switch up exercise routines frequently. A good way to stay engaged is to change cardio and resistance training drastically every month. This is one of the reasons why P90X has been so effective because you are not repeating exercises and you are seeing results.”

Working mothers who have limited time to workout have several options for staying in shape.

“If they get one of my DVDs they can workout right in their living room for a half-hour and they don’t have to drive to the gym,” Warner recommends.  “If you make the time to workout you will feel much more energized throughout your day. You can simply grab a DVD or grab a couple weights and exercise before your day starts or at the end. It’s best to figure out what time of the day you feel the strongest so you can get the maximum benefit from your workout routine.”

Advice for women in their 50s and 60s

Women in their 50s and 60s should continue to exercise because it benefits them in many ways, Warner says, which includes increasing bone density.

“I am in my 40s and what I do is very basic and not high impact,” Warner says. “I do a lot of body building movements and it’s about combining the right function with perfect form to complete fatigue. Which includes training hard to muscle failure, this just means high repetition chest presses, squats, lunges and five to 10 pushups. That is how you should be training.”

Warner adds that she does a combination of circuit training and stresses that older women should be lifting weights to increase bone density.

“If your mother is in her 50s or 60s this is the time she should be working with weights,” Warner says.

Although Warner has never trained someone who is a heart attack survivor, she has trained people who have heart conditions. In fact, she was diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse, a common heart valve abnormality, and still maintains a rigorous exercise program.

“People who have heart conditions or are recovering from them need to exercise to maintain optimal health. However, it is imperative to contact a physician before starting any training program,” she says.

This article was originally published by Life Quotes, Inc.

Although nearly one-third of consumers believe they need more life insurance, their top reason for not pursuing coverage is a misperception of how much it costs, according to a report by the nonprofit Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education and LIMRA, a worldwide research, consulting and professional development organization.

The 2012 Insurance Barometer Study indicates including 20 percent of current policyholders and about half of those without coverage believe they need a new or additional coverage. The top reason, cited by 85 percent of respondents, was a commitment to “other financial priorities.” This was followed by 83 percent who said they believed it was “too expensive.”

Asked to estimate the annual cost of a 20-year, $250,000, level-term life policy for a healthy 30-year old consumer, the average estimate from respondents was $400, compared to the actual cost of about $150.

“If people think that something is too pricey, they often won’t give it a second thought.The fact is, the cost for basic term life insurance has fallen by about 50 percent over the past 10 years and has never been more affordable. Owning life insurance is fundamental to a family’s financial security, and our industry needs to do more to help educate people about the true cost of protecting their loved ones,” says Marvin H. Feldman, CLU, ChFC, RFC, president and CEO of the LIFE Foundation.

The new study found that consumers within the most underserved markets are also the most aware of their need for more life insurance. More than one in three women believe they do not have enough life insurance coverage, compared to 29 percent of men. Among survey respondents 25 and younger, 41 percent say they need more coverage, of consumers 25 to 44 — the prime insurance-buying years — 36 percent believe they need more life insurance. Key minority groups are also more likely to feel underinsured, with 42 percent of African Americans and 37 percent of Hispanics saying they need more life insurance (compared to 32 percent of the total population).

“Our message to the public is simple: If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who lacks adequate life insurance coverage, act now before it’s too late,” says Robert Kerzner, CLU, ChFC, president and CEO of LIMRA, LOMA, and LL Global. “We created the Barometer Study with the LIFE Foundation to provide an annual snapshot of evolving consumer attitudes about a wide range of insurance-related topics, and our hope is that the broader industry will use these insights to help address the crisis of underinsurance this country faces.”

This year’s Insurance Barometer Study also found that while consumers generally agree that life insurance is a necessity, it falls behind other financial priorities. Consumers are more concerned with paying their mortgage or rent (31 percent say they are extremely or very concerned) or losing money on investments (26 percent) than they are with issues that speak to the need for life insurance. Having enough money for a comfortable retirement continues to be consumers’ top financial concern (50 percent say they are extremely or very concerned).

Conducted by LIFE and LIMRA, the Insurance Barometer Study is an annual survey designed to increase understanding about consumer attitudes and behaviors regarding a host of insurance and financial planning matters. The study examined consumers’ attitudes about life insurance, disability insurance and long-term care insurance, as well as their buying preferences and perceptions about the insurance industry. New for 2012, the study also looked at perceptions about workplace benefits. To request a full copy of the report, please contact LIFE or LIMRA.

The nationwide Insurance Barometer Study is an annual study conducted by LIFE and LIMRA to better understand the public’s opinions, attitudes and behaviors regarding life and health insurance, as well as more general financial planning matters.

This article was originally published by Life Quotes, Inc.

The grim reaper takes few vacations, but sometimes he can provide a quick buck from an insurance company. From people faking their own deaths to those taking out a bogus policy or trying to escape the law, the lure of an easy payout keeps life insurance companies on the lookout for fraudulent death claims.

While they don’t go peering into every coffin, there are techniques investigators use to figure out which cases might not hold water.

A Darwin by any other name just isn't the same...

In August 2009, John Darwin, a man from North East England, faked his own death in a contrived canoe drowning accident on the Cleveland coast, so he and his wife could collect £250,000 in insurance payouts.  Days before Darwin’s “disappearance” the couple was about to file bankruptcy.

Known as the “Canoe Man” Darwin and his wife fled to Panama to start a new life together after convincing authorities, the coroner and even their two sons’ that John had died in a canoe accident.

Trouble began for the couple when Panama changed their requirements for a visa and the authorities in the United Kingdom would have to verify their identity.  Darwin decided to return to the UK,  fake amnesia, and join Anne in Panama with a fresh passport.

Unfortunately, there were a number of  suspicious activities his “grieving widow” had been involved in that caught the attention of investigators, which included going on several foreign vacations,  transferring large sums of money to Panama and selling her home in England so she could move there.

The plot fell apart when a simple search of Google Images provided a picture of the happy couple on a Panama relocation services website years before Darwin’s reappearance, completely blowing their cover.

Darwin and his wife  were sentenced to six years each in prison for insurance fraud.  John and Anne Darwin served half of their six-year sentence and were released from prison in 2011. The Darwins’ are expected to repay nearly all of the stolen insurance money and defrauded pension funds.

Sources obtained from news reports provided by the Daily Mail, BBC News, The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Daily Mirror

Steven N. Weisbart, senior vice president and chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, a public information source about insurance for consumers, knows all about the red flags insurance companies look for when it comes time to pay death benefits.  The overwhelming majority of the time there aren’t any red flags to worry about, but when there are, insurers look closely to make sure nothing is out of place.

In nearly all cases, the only thing an insurance company needs is a signed death certificate. Once that’s issued listing the time, place and cause of death,  the benefits are paid. Only when there are questions over the cause of death do insurance companies begin their own investigation.

In some instances, individuals who endeavor to commit fraud get away with it for several decades. A recent example is the case of 73-year-old Robert Arcieri.  Arcieri was a well-known, well-liked and now infamous businessman from Phoenix, who managed to get away with faking his own demise for 25 years, while he and his family profited off the life insurance money.

In 1987, Arcieri convinced local authorities and his life insurance company that he fell into the Colorado River and died during a fishing trip, leaving behind a string of pending felony charges and a $700,000 life insurance policy for his family.

The charges included armed robbery, three counts of conspiracy to commit burglary and two counts of solicitation to commit murder.

When he pleaded guilty to these charges earlier this year, prosecutors tacked on an additional charge of fraud for faking his own death. He received a 10-year sentence in March.

Larry Flick was a Phoenix, Ariz. police detective and lead investigator of Arcieri’s case at the time. He says there was no doubt in the law enforcement community that Arcieri’s nighttime drowning was staged.

“Nobody that was associated with this case believed that he wasn’t alive and I’m sure the insurance investigator also believed he was alive,” Flick says. “The feigning of the death was successful in that it paid off but we didn’t quash the original charges, they stayed in effect all those years.”

Flick says Arcieri first came to the attention of police after he took out an insurance policy on a business associate, then tried to take out a hit on the individual so he could collect. Unfortunately for Arcieri, the man he tried to hire for the job was a police informant.

Arcieri was indicted and arrested in June 1986. Flick says one of Arcieri’s accomplice’s agreed to cop a plea and testify against him on the pending charges, as well as provide information on other alleged activities.

The prosecutor decided to drop the charges, let Arcieri go and later re-indict him after investigating the accomplice’s claims.

Flick says Arcieri planned his disappearance in advance by creating false identities, bank accounts under assumed names and filing for bankruptcy.

“Arcieri was just a capitalist, a crooked capitalist nonetheless, but it was all about money. Anything that could turn a buck, whether it was legitimate or illegitimate he was into it,” Flick says.

The case was featured on the TV show “Unsolved Mysteries” and, because of the suspicious nature of Arcieri’s death his life insurance company fought payment on the claim. Flick says that is because Arcieri wasn’t under indictment at the time he disappeared, the criminal investigation against him wasn’t admitted in court.

In March 1990, a jury ordered the life insurance company to payout on the policy, which by then had grown to more than $1 million with interest. Flick says most of the money went to cover Arcieri’s bankruptcy debts, with his three daughters collecting around $120,000 each.

“The jury that sat in on the case was not allowed to hear the very obvious reason why Arcieri would’ve feigned his death,” Flick says. “We thought this was a ruse.”

Art Widowski, a Phoenix police detective, says Arcieri fled to Canada and upstate New York before settling in Spokane, Wash. under an alias, where he married another woman and sold mobile homes.

“Once he settled at a legitimate job, he kept that identity. Everybody that I spoke to thought he was just a guy who had a penchant for being a salesman, no one suspected anything since he had a legitimate job,” Widowksi says.

Arcieri later moved to Palm Springs, Calif. where he was known to have visited two of his daughters. While the daughters benefited from their father’s life insurance policy, Widowski says there’s no evidence that they helped him financially.

Widowski says Arcieri’s family ties ultimately led to his capture, as one of his daughters turned him into police after they had a falling out.

Purchasing life insurance is an important piece of a person’s financial pie and needs to be carefully thought out, considering your family’s financial future could be hanging in the balance should you die.

Here are some common mistakes people make when buying life insurance coverage and how to avoid them.

1. Failure to buy enough insurance for your needs or to consider different life insurance products. “Some people say, ‘I make $50,000 a year so if I buy $250,000 in life insurance that should be enough for the family’. But what do they do after five years if there is no way to replace your income,” says Marvin Feldman, president and CEO of The LIFE Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping consumers make smart insurance decisions.

Feldman says he recommends individuals purchase 15 times their income in insurance if their children are young. When policyholders reach their 50s and their kids are grown, they may need 10 times their income, with the percentage decreasing as they age.

Brian Ashe, treasurer of the LIFE Foundation’s board of directors, says people shouldn’t decrease the amount too much as people are living longer, and that policy may need to stretch for quite a few years. He recommends keeping your life insurance policy as long as you live, saying some companies offer universal life to age 100.

“Research shows one of two 62-year-olds will live to age 92. That’s 30 years of no more earnings or pay, yet you’ll need to pay for food, healthcare and other expenses,” Ashe says.

Experts say people will generally need 70 percent of their working income once they retire, provided that is, if their mortgage is paid off and they don’t incur any major expenses.

2. Failure to purchase a personal policy. Feldman says some people believe if they receive life insurance through work, they don’t need to purchase any on their own. But he points out policies purchased through an employer are usually only for one to two times your income and are terminated if you leave the company for any reason.

“This policy is just one piece of the formula,” Feldman says. “Most people still need to purchase either term or whole life policies on their own, depending on their finances and long-term goals.”

Term insurance is less costly, but only pays if you die within the term of the policy. Whole life policies average a 4 percent to 5 percent rate of return and have a cash value component that can be used to save up for tuition costs or retirement.

3. Failure to understand what you’re buying. Some policies provide an investment as well as life/death benefits, says Jim Miles, a life actuary in Indianapolis and consultant with the Society of Actuaries.

“This can get complicated. If you don’t understand investments or how these policies work, don’t buy this type of policy,” advises Miles.

He says term insurance is the easiest to understand, but adds even the provisions of some term life insurance can be complicated.  Miles recommends choosing an agent who can explain the policy thoroughly, so you fully understand its terms and conditions and what you receive in return.

4. Failure to include all beneficiaries on policy. Feldman says you need to be specific about who will be beneficiaries on your policy. “Did you include adopted children, too?” He asks.  Also, if you had another child after taking out the policy, be sure to add that child as a beneficiary.

Ashe says one mistake he sees frequently is people get divorced and remarry and forget to change the beneficiary to the new spouse. The result? The last person you may want to see get your money, will.

If you buy a policy when you become engaged and name your fiancée or fiancé as an intended spouse, be sure to take their name off if the marriage never takes place and you no longer want that person as beneficiary.

5. Failure to consider the total financial picture. Miles says some people get caught up with the investment aspect and other types of insurance—such as accidental death and dismemberment—and don’t buy enough death benefit.

“You need to think of buying life insurance as a total package, not individual pieces,” he says.

6. Failure to have a will or trust. This spells out without a shadow of a doubt who, when and how the beneficiaries receive the proceeds, and is especially important if your minor children are included as beneficiaries.

Ashe says minor children can’t access the proceeds of an insurance policy unless a guardian has been appointed. And typically, the guardian will be named in the person’s will. The guardian has a fiduciary duty to the child and must prove to the court that he or she is acting properly for the child when dispensing money.

“If you didn’t name the guardian in your will, the state will… The person chosen may not necessarily be the person you would want,” Ashe says.

7. Failure to insure your kids through a child rider or a children’s policy. Ashe advises parents to buy life insurance for their children, provided they already have life insurance on themselves in place. He says children are generally healthier and can get coverage at a significantly lower cost.  Also, many companies have a guaranteed insurability option where the child, when older, can buy additional insurance regardless of their health.

“This could be more important than you may think.  A doctor said 20 percent to 30 percent of pre-teens today are candidates to be diabetic or heart patients in their early 20s because of obesity. These children may never qualify for standard life insurance rates again,” Ashe says.

8. Failure to understand that an accidental death policy does have value. Accidental death is a traditional life insurance policy that pays additional benefits, sometimes double, if the death of the policyholder was an accident.  Accidental death and dismemberment policies provide income to your family for disabling injuries that are not fatal, including loss of limbs or eyesight.  According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 10.8 million motor vehicle accidents in 2009, the last year for which figures are available, and 35.9 million people died within one year of being involved in a vehicle accident that year.

9. Failure to know that in most cases an Accelerated Death Benefit is a FREE rider added on to your life insurance policy. This rider helps terminally ill people pay their expenses before they die.  However, you have to add the rider when you first purchase the policy, and if you invoke the privilege then it accrues interest that is immediately taken out of the final death benefit.  According to the Illinois Department of Insurance, this option usually pays 50 to 80 percent of the policy’s face value and can be paid in a lump sum or monthly payments.

10.  Failure to realize as a young adult that you are not infallible and should have a life insurance policy. Accidents can happen at any time, and according to Ashe, are probably more likely to happen to young people than the older generation. You can die from an accident while driving a car, riding a bicycle, skiing or just walking across a busy street.  Young adults in their 20s and 30s aren’t immune to several forms of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses that could lead to death. Drug and alcohol overdoses also are more likely to happen to young adults.

“You want to buy life insurance when you’re young and healthy. Life insurance rates are lower. In fact, they’ve gone down 60 percent from 30 years ago. Also, if you want until you’re dying, no one will sell it to you,” Ashe says.

11.   Failure to inform beneficiaries that you have a policy and where it is. Perhaps it’s paranoia, or maybe the policyholder wants to present a beloved family member with a post-mortem surprise gift. Whatever the reason, there are tens of  thousands of life insurance policies worth millions, perhaps even billions, sitting in states’ unclaimed properties divisions.  West Virginia alone is holding 35,000 life insurance policies with a total value of about $8.8 million, according to Carolyn Atkinson, the state’s deputy director for Unclaimed Property and president of the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators.

“People may not know grandfather or father or mother took out a policy and named them as beneficiary,” Atkinson says.

Luckily, Atkinson says about 77 percent of all unclaimed property and money is eventually paid out in West Virginia, whether by people going to their website or their investigators tracking down the intended recipients. To make sure this doesn’t happen to your heirs, insurers recommend placing insurance papers with other important documents and including the policy in your will.

This article was originally published by Life Quotes, Inc.

Risky behaviors associated with HEP C

o Drug use and sharing needles with an infected person

o Having unprotected sex with an infected person through breaks in the skin or the lining of the mouth

o People who are on kidney dialysis

o The infection can be passed on from mother to unborn child

o Having a blood transfusion before 1992

o Getting a tattoo or piercing with unsanitary instruments

o Being a healthcare worker who is accidentally stuck with a dirty syringe

o Using the razor, toothbrush or nail clippers of an infected person

o Having hemophilia

Source: Mayo Clinic

Hepatitis C (HEP C, HCV) has surpassed HIV when it comes to fatality rates of adults, according to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One reason is because a smaller amount of blood is needed to infect a person with HCV than HIV.

“The virus can spread whenever there is blood-to-blood contact between an infected person and non-infected person,” says Dr. Leopoldo Arosemena, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Miami and liver disease specialist. “A minimal amount of blood is necessary for transmission of the virus.”

Arosemena adds that even people who were given medication through injections from boiled needles had a chance of becoming infected with the virus.

“Those needles and other sharp objects in similar situations did not have any visible blood,” says Arosemena.

POPULATION AT-RISK

HEP C is a deadly virus that infects and damages the liver, resulting in a number of diseases including cirrhosis, liver cancer and acute liver failure that can lead, in its most critical stages, to a liver transplant. According to a recent study by the CDC, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, members of the baby boomer generation (people between the ages of 47 to 67) are at a higher risk of getting HEP C.

“Baby boomers are disproportionately affected by HCV in the U.S. and many of them were infected decades ago,” says Jennifer Ruth Horvath, spokesperson for the National  Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention at the CDC. “The reason why this group has high rates of infection is not completely understood. Many baby boomers have become infected from contaminated blood and blood products before universal precautions were adopted and widespread screening of blood supplies began in 1992.”

Horvath adds that some baby boomers became infected due to experimentation with drug use, but it isn’t the only common mode of transmission.

“Reaching the baby boomer population with screening is critical to slowing and stopping the serious health consequences already taking place,” says Horvath.

While the dangers of hepatitis have been in the news for years, it should not prevent someone who has been diagnosed with the virus from buying life insurance. Unlike HIV, most life insurers will cover policyholders with hepatitis including those with HCV but it is dependent on several criteria, says Craig Davidson, Medical Director for The Hartford.

“We would check the person’s medical history and look for elevated liver function,” says Davidson. “Once it is determined that they have Hepatitis C, we would determine how long they’ve had it and how they got it.”

What might be revealed in the person’s medical history is that they may have indulged in risky sexual behavior when they were younger, or that they were involved in a major car accident that required a blood transfusion. Other telltale signs include a history of IV drug use or the person is a healthcare worker or someone who handles blood in their profession.

Davidson says like most blood-borne viruses, HEP C commonly shows up in a standard blood test. In a case where the person doesn’t know they have it, they might go to the doctor feeling ill with the flu and it may be found in the lab work or the person decides to give blood and since blood is screened so closely, they might learn they have it that way. Also, a routine blood test is given to people applying for life insurance and the antibodies might be revealed then.  Medical experts say it takes up to 10 years of more for an HCV-infection to show up in a liver function test.

STIGMA

It is estimated that of the 4.1 million adults in the United States who have tested positive for HCV antibodies, 3.2 million of them have a chronic HCV or Chronic hepatitis C (CHC) genotype 1. What’s worse, the CDC found that 50 to 75 percent of people infected with HCV have no idea they are living with the disease.

“I think the prevalence is as high as it is because Chronic Hepatitis C  is a “silent disease”  in that symptoms often do not appear for years,” says Arosemena.  “Approximately 70 to 80 percent of people newly infected with the chronic HCV do not have any symptoms.  Many are surprised by the diagnosis. Often, I have to take a very detailed history to retrospectively find any potential risk factors and estimate the length of the infection.”

SPREADING AWARENESS

HCV has become so prevalent that it spawned a national public health campaign “Tune Into Hep C” and its slogan “Doing nothing is not an option; talk to your doctor” is sponsored by the American Liver Foundation and pharmaceutical company Merck whose mission is to spread awareness about chronic HEP C and promote treatment and prevention of the viral infection.

The campaign highlights the personal stories of those who have struggled with the illness or have loved ones who have been impacted by Hepatitis C,  including  three Grammy winners: singer songwriter Natalie Cole, music legend Greg Allman and recording artist and songwriter Jon Secada.

Allman had taken a routine physical after complaining to his doctor that he had no energy and once he received the blood results he learned that he tested positive for HEP C.   After failed treatment he had a liver transplant. Cole, found out she had HEP C in much the same way, during a routine blood test in 2008.

Cole wrote about her illness in her memoir “Love Brought Me Back” which was published in 2010. Like Allman, Cole also had to have a liver transplant. Secada lost his father, Jose, to chronic HEP C because he did not seek treatment and kept his ordeal with the disease a secret from his family. The disease was so advanced that his father died of complications associated with HEP C.

“The perceived stigma associated with chronic Hepatitis C continues to be a barrier that seems to prevent patients from speaking with their doctors about the disease,” says Arosemena.  “I believe in general that stigma stems from a misunderstanding or lack of awareness.  Some people acquired the virus by using intravenous drugs, inhaling cocaine and so on. I think that this leads to improper generalization since a great percentage of the infected patients never used recreational drugs.”

Whether it’s the loss of a job, unexpected medical expenses, home repairs or just putting the kids through college, anyone in a financial bind has a variety of resources they can turn to—particularly if they already have a bit of equity to borrow against.

Options include borrowing from a life insurance policy or a 401(k) plan, tapping a home equity loan, an ordinary refinancing or getting a reverse mortgage.

Of course no discussion of these issues would be complete without first mentioning the importance of financial planning to try and avoid this scenario. Each of these options comes with potential drawbacks to the point where some financial analysts argue for just avoiding them altogether.

Of course no discussion of these issues would be complete without first mentioning the importance of financial planning to try and avoid this scenario. Each of these options comes with potential drawbacks to the point where some financial analysts argue for just avoiding them altogether.

Bill Palmer, senior financial advisor and a Certified Financial Planner with Win Wealth Management in Denver, Colo. says everyone should have about six months of living expenses set aside in an emergency fund which they can earn interest on, rather than borrowing when they get in a pinch.

“These are solutions for people who are not planning so why not better serve those people by encouraging them to plan and to save and to live within their means, or better yet below their means so that they can save. It’s all about striking a balance between consuming today and starving tomorrow,” Palmer says. “Interest is a reduction in your total cash flow so if you don’t have to pay interest in the grand scheme you’re much better off.”

Palmer suggests keeping a reserve fund in a four-year Certificate of Deposit to earn interest, then pay whatever penalty might arise from having to draw on that money in an emergency.

Yet not everyone is willing or perhaps able to follow that advice. Anyone reading this article might be at the point where they need resources now. That’s why we’ll take a look at each of these options and consider the issues surrounding all of them.

“Any resource can be a tool so long as it’s wisely used. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a reverse mortgage or a home equity credit line or you borrow cash value from your life insurance policy or 401(k) plans,” says Neil Van Zutphen, president of Delta Ventures and a Certified Financial Planner in Mesa, Ariz. “You have to think of each as its own tool and understand the pros and cons of each of the tools.”

He says the first step, before even considering these options, is to cut back on expenses and save as much as possible. While tapping these resources can help those in a bind, they can easily let someone get lulled into a false sense of financial security.

“They spend at a normal level when they should be saying to themselves holy smokes I need to really ratchet this down and spend the least amount possible so that we can preserve and conserve our capital for as long as possible,” Van Zutphen says.

Refinancing

At a time when interest rates are at such low levels, a simple refinancing could reduce a mortgage payment and provide extra cash in a homeowner’s budget. Unfortunately, a weakness in the housing market means anyone who bought a house within the past few years is probably underwater as their home could be worth far less than the mortgage they have on it.

“If you have at least 20 percent equity in your home you ought to have a good opportunity to refinance, if you have good credit, and obtain historic low interest rates,” says Samuel Tamkin, a Chicago-based real estate attorney, real estate expert and columnist for ThinkGlink.com.

“Recently I talked to someone who said they were offered a 2 ¾ interest rate on a 15-year mortgage. That interest rate seemed so low to me that it was almost free money,” Tamkin says.

While some homeowners might be tempted to get extra cash from refinancing by borrowing more than they have in their existing mortgage, Tamkin says this could be difficult unless a home’s value is substantially higher than the new mortgage amount.

Palmer says refinancing would be an option for those whose loan to value ratio is at 80 percent, although he warns against pulling excess capital out of a mortgage as most people aren’t responsible enough to use that money wisely.  He suggests putting money into an index fund rather than trying to beat the markets.

“For those who have discipline then I’m okay with having a home mortgage that you take cash out of when you refinance if you immediately invest it in a long-term investment plan and you don’t gamble it on speculative investments,” Palmer says. “That’s the only time when I would encourage somebody to take out cash, but the rule of thumb is if the rate of the debt cost you less than the highly probable expected return, not an eyes in the sky end of the rainbow expected return, but something pragmatic and realistic.”

Home equity loans

Home equity loans and Home Equity Lines of Credit are basically second mortgages of a different name. They allow a homeowner to borrow against the equity in their home at rates lower than other means of borrowing, such as a credit card. (see sidebar)

A home-equity loan provides a one lump payment at a fixed rate and is generally used for a set amount of money for specific purpose, such as repairing a home or building an addition.

A HELOC comes with a variable interest rate that usually tracks the prime lending rate, plus a few points. A borrower gets special checks they can draw on at any time and are often used as an emergency fund.

The HELOC doesn’t accrue interest charges until the line of credit is actually tapped by the borrower, so it can function as a backup financial plan in case of emergency. A HELOC can be revoked or altered at any time by the bank for various reasons, such as a substantial decline in a home’s value or a change in the homeowner’s finances.

“It’s only there in the event of a true emergency. If you lose your job or both of you lose your jobs,” Van Zutphen says. “You try not to tap into it all at once, you just use it as you can and then try to pay it back as quickly as possible.”

Interest rates are low enough to make a home equity loan affordable, Tamkin says, although it’s unlikely that anyone who bought a home within the past seven years or so would have enough equity in their home to borrow against.

“Some markets you may have seen prices go back to around the year 2000 but if you bought in 1994 and you’ve been in your home almost 20 years, you may still have a substantial amount of equity in your home, particularly if when you refinanced you only refinanced prior balances and didn’t take additional money out,” Tamkin says.

Palmer says the best use of a HELOC is to have one on hold with a bank, but only as a backup resource to an emergency fund that can be used after a six-month savings reserve has been depleted.

Although life insurance deals with everyone’s final destination, there are cases where buying a policy has extended someone’s life by alerting them to an unknown medical problem.

The most obvious example is basketball star Magic Johnson, who learned he was HIV positive after undergoing an extensive physical for a new life insurance policy. Another NBA player, Fred Hoiburg, had a life insurance exam that uncovered a heart deformity. It required open-heart surgery that ended his basketball career but probably saved his life.

In some cases, a life insurance physical might be the first time someone has seen a doctor in years—especially young men, or men in general. Although women are more likely to maintain regular checkups, for reproductive and other issues, men tend to put off seeing a doctor until it is something serious.

“Men a lot of times just don’t like going to the doctor,” says Dr. Craig Davidson, assistant vice president and senior medical director at The Hartford. “Women are supposed to go into the doctor periodically and it’s more the usual state for them.”

He adds diabetes is one of the top issues discovered by a life insurance exam. People might not realize they have it because the symptoms build up slowly over years. Heart issues also top the list, with the most common being an irregular heartbeat or atrial fibrillation.

For more about paramedical exams, read “Nine things to consider before taking a paramedical exam.”

Davidson says life insurance exams have also uncovered prior mild heart attacks, or in medical terms non-ST-segment myocardial infarction or NSTEMI, in people who didn’t realize they had a problem. This is especially true with mild heart attacks because an EKG will detect a problem in addition to the results of a simple blood test.

During a mild heart attack there is a blood clot in the small arteries of the heart that impacts normal blood flow. This releases proteins from the damaged heart into the bloodstream. Those identifiable proteins are called troponins and creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB), proteins that are easily detectable and show up in lab results.

“We’ve had people thank us because we found something. The typical story, especially when it comes to men, is that they finally go to the doctor because they feel tired lately but they think it is no big deal and that they are just not getting enough sleep, when the reality is that they have a serious heart condition or a controllable condition like sleep apnea,” says Davidson. “The last thing they think of is going to the doctor unless their wife or significant other tells them that they better go and get checked.”

In some cases a person’s regular doctor might suggest a follow-up visit or recommend a test but the patient fails to follow through. This information would be discovered by the life insurance company and is something the insurer would want an applicant to address before offering them a policy.

Paramedical examiners themselves may not be in the business of diagnosing illnesses or dispersing advice but James Fritz, president and CEO of APPS Paramedical Services, says they often spot problems that an applicant is unaware of.

“They might find an abnormal reading on an electrocardiogram or their blood pressure is extremely high or extremely low and they realize something has happened and encourage the person to contact a medical professional saving the applicant from a significant episode or serious medical situation,” Fritz says. “This may not be publicly recognized, but it is a reality and it does uncover significant illnesses and issues that do save peoples lives and we are proud of that fact.”

Sometimes a life insurance applicant benefits from sheer luck and fortunate timing.

Kim Anderson, a senior vice president in the Insurance Services Division at Examination Management Services Inc. in Hewitt, Tex., says her company had a case where a paramedical examiner came across a seizure in progress for an applicant who didn’t know they had epilepsy.

“When the examiner arrived at the applicant’s home, they heard funny noises inside and no one was answering the door. The examiner looked in the window and saw that the applicant was inside having a seizure. The examiner immediately called 911,” Anderson says. “Who knows what would’ve happened, if the examiner had not made that appointment. This would’ve been a life-threatening situation.”

Anderson says one applicant wound up having emergency surgery to correct a serious heart condition, after an EKG for their life insurance policy uncovered an unusual heart rhythm.

There are also times when a life insurance exam can be more extensive than a traditional physical. A test for liver problems, for example, might not be performed during a normal physical unless there’s a particular reason—such as a patient being on certain medications, has a history of alcohol abuse or if they have liver-related symptoms.

“When you used to go to the doctor they would order a panel to check on your liver and your kidneys. Nowadays some health insurance doesn’t cover those tests so you may not have your liver function checked,” Davidson says.

Even doctors themselves can benefit from this. Dr. Joan Schaefer, chief medical officer of Nebraska’s Health and Human Services System (HHSS), discovered this in the late 1990s when she applied for a life insurance policy. At the time she was finishing her residency and training for a marathon.

Her life insurance exam showed increased liver enzymes, something that insurance companies like to check as a sign of health and alcohol consumption.  Schaefer had been avoiding alcohol as part of her training, so she knew the test had to be an indication of something else.

“I went to my physician and we repeated the test and then my enzyme levels kept getting worse and so it prompted a whole workup, but it was kind of an out of the blue finding that a life insurance physical found because I was otherwise healthy and I was just doing the responsible thing, getting a life insurance physical,” Schaefer says.

Additional tests revealed she had congenital hepatic fibrosis, otherwise known as a malformed liver, which would eventually fail her. Schaefer took medications to maintain her liver as long as possible until she eventually had a liver transplant in 2008.

Schaefer says it’s not clear if her condition would’ve been discovered during a routine physical, as a regular exam doesn’t always include the kind of tests performed by the life insurance company. At the very least, she was diagnosed earlier than she otherwise would have been because of the life insurance exam.

“I was symptomatic within about three years, symptomatic enough that I would have been at the doctor’s saying something is wrong and had I not sought medical care it would have been just a few years and I would have been in there saying something is terribly wrong,” Schaefer says.

Schaefer, who has participated in several half marathons since her recovery, still sees life insurance as more of a financial planning tool than a life saving measure.

“I tell folks all the time—financial planning—you’ve got to think about those things, it’s never pleasant but you’ve got to think about it and you should be doing it before your insurability goes away,” Schaefer says.

This article was originally published by Life Quotes, Inc.

Americans must love to wile away the hours sitting in traffic, pounding their steering wheels and cursing out other drivers while inhaling the lovely aroma of car exhaust—at least judging by the amount of time we spend doing it.

Commuters in the U.S. spent 4.8 billion hours idling in their cars as a result of rush-hour traffic delays in 2010, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. They also wasted an additional 1.9 billion gallons of fuel doing so.

The impact this has on people’s health is easy to understand but harder to quantify. Vehicle exhaust is part of a giant soup of noxious gasses and particulate matter emitted into the air from a variety of sources, including coal-fired power plants and steel mills, yet sitting for hours in rush hour traffic can and does lead to a variety of health issues.

Dr. C. Arden Pope III, professor of economics and epidemiologist at Brigham Young University, says several studies indicate a connection between traffic and illness, although it’s impossible to say that spending a certain amount of time in traffic will lead to a specific medical problem.

“The literature is not strong enough to say for certain, but what we can say is that the evidence is compelling enough to indicate that being exposed to this fine particulate pollution increases your risk of respiratory and cardiovascular disease in fairly significant ways,” Pope says. “For those people, a substantial amount of their exposure actually occurs during their commute.”

Those environmental health effects can lead to serious illnesses such as cardiac and pulmonary diseases that would show up on a life insurance paramedical examination, resulting in higher life insurance premiums. Life insurance applicants are typically given chest X-rays and lung and pulmonary function tests to rule out any major health problems with their heart and lungs.

Asthma is a common respiratory illness that constricts the airways and initiates labored breathing and wheezing, it is also a chronic condition that can be exacerbated by exposure to pollutants, such as vehicle exhaust.  According to the Environmental Defense Fund, asthma afflicts more than 22 million people in the United States. Children are particularly hard hit by the illness, especially those under the age of four.  Asthmatic children in this age group has more than doubled since 1992. The EDF also reports that diesel emissions in New York City has added to the problem. Children who live in New York City were twice as likely as other children in the nation to be hospitalized due to severe asthma.

From an insurance underwriters perspective, depending on the severity of the illness, the type of life insurance policy for asthma sufferers can range from a standard rating for mild cases, to low to moderate to a high substandard rating or a decline, if the illness has not been adequately kept under control. For example, if you are offered a low substandard policy because you have asthma, this would be what is called a Table A-D rating, meaning that the price of the policy is 150 percent to 175 percent higher than a standard rating, which is considered the best case scenario for this condition.  Instances where a person’s asthma is considered severe, they could be given a high substandard rating, which means they might see their policy costing them 300  to 500 percent higher than someone with a standard rating.

A 2010 report by the Health Effects Institute examined more than 700 world studies of health and pollution and concluded “…there is sufficient evidence that exposures to traffic-related air pollution cause asthma exacerbation in children and suggestive evidence that they might cause other health effects…”

It also found evidence of a causal relationship between automobile pollution and impaired lung function and a hardening of the arteries.

However, some problems are obvious. Anger and stress are bad for the heart.

A German study in 2009 found that heart attack patients were more than three times as likely to have been in traffic within an hour of their attack, posing an added threat to those already at risk.

The Environmental Protection Agency provides a chart illustrating environmental pollution and its health risks below:

Dr. Ed Avol, a professor in the department of preventive medicine, Keck School of Medicine at the University of California, says a number of studies have made an association between exposure to traffic and respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological and birth-related issues. There are even suggestions that there may be some linkage to diabetes and obesity.

“It’s not like it’s a smoking gun short of connection, cause and effect, but there’s no question that there does seem to be a statistical connection and when we try to add just out mathematically for all the other things that might be responsible,” Avol says. “To the best of our abilities for and by many people, many groups doing the sorts of studies, there does seem to be this recurring signal that we see so we’re fairly confident that there’s something going on.”

Flying dirt

Vehicle exhaust includes a mix of ultra-fine particles, organic compounds, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, formaldehyde, benzene and metals such as zinc.

Any or all of these could have a negative impact on health, according to Dr. Fuyen Yip, team lead of the Air Pollution and Asthma Epidemiology Team at the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Environmental Health.

“While we don’t know specifically which pollutants may be responsible for adverse health, the science is fairly clear that this exhaust mixture may trigger a response not only in the lungs, but the heart as well,” Yip said via email. “Over a lifetime, increased exposures to traffic pollution may also lead to reduced lifespans among otherwise healthy individuals. We do believe that individuals with asthma and individuals with other respiratory or cardiovascular illnesses are especially sensitive to traffic pollution.”

Experts believe that as pollutants enter the lungs and the bloodstream, they may lead to acute inflammation that disrupts the body’s normal processes. Yip says that for most people the impact may include unnoticeable changes in their heart rate or lung inflammation. A rare few could experience a heart attack.

Avol says some of the particles emitted by combustion, including that from vehicles, are small enough to cross from the lungs directly into the bloodstream, where it’s believed they may lead to inflammation of the cells themselves and impact their function—such as their ability to absorb nutrients.

“Big sized of pieces of dirt we call rocks and little sized pieces of dirt we call aerosols. When an engine burns, even when your gas stove is on or when your fireplace is on it’s not a 100 percent efficient process, it doesn’t completely consume everything that’s going into the flames, so there is some incomplete combustion and there’s some contaminants, some pollutants that come out of that,” Avol says. “In the case of car exhaust there are a whole range of small particles that come out of that.”

About 10 percent of the 2.3 million U.S. couples who will get engaged this year will do so on Valentine’s Day, according to the Diamond Information Center. If you’re among the lucky lovebirds, you’ll have plenty to do before you say “I do,” and that should include purchasing life insurance, experts say.

The benchmark for purchasing life insurance is whether you have someone financially dependent on you, says Michael Barry, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute. That happens when you go from single to married, even if your spouse also works, Barry says.

He says both the future husband and wife should obtain a life insurance policy once they become engaged, whether they are in their 20s or 50s, to ease the other’s financial burden should one die.

Marvin H. Feldman, president and CEO of The LIFE Foundation, recommends starting the process of obtaining insurance about three to six months before the wedding date, noting that it takes time for the paperwork to be completed and processed. It could take longer if there are trust documents, new wills and medical issues that need to be addressed, he adds.

“If the wedding plans are firm, I recommend the quicker the better,” Feldman says.

He says the beneficiary of the policy should be listed by name as the intended spouse, suggesting that  in the wife’s case, the married name can be added later.

Feldman says should one person die before the wedding takes place, the intended spouse would be legally entitled to the proceeds of the policy.

When you’re young, in love and dreaming of a long life together, life insurance isn’t always on the radar screen, but insurers say it should be.

“Young people may feel no need for life insurance, but they need to look at their financial obligations. There could be college loans to pay off, or any bill that was signed on the dotted line.  If you get married and one spouse has tremendous debt, life insurance would cover that debt in the event of a death,” Feldman says.

Barry points out that life insurance is usually less expensive for people in their 20s and 30s, provided they’re in good health and don’t smoke. Whole life insurance policies never increase in price. However, he says for most young couples without a lot of money, a more affordable option is term life insurance—which pays out only in the event of death within the term of the policy, whether it’s 10 or 30 years.

If this is a second marriage for either or both of you, or if you’re an older couple, you need to look at the total package before deciding how much insurance to purchase or whether a current policy is sufficient, Feldman says.

Will you be moving into one larger home? Are there new children with the new merger? Are there other new expenses? All these need to be considered, Feldman says.

This article was originally published by Life Quotes, Inc.

Buying term life insurance can be confusing at the best of times, but it needn’t be. With a bad economy and newer products available, term life insurance can look particularly attractive if you’re trying to save money – but now more than ever, it’s important to ask your insurance agent the right questions upfront.

Assuming you’ve already decided to buy term insurance and know why you’re doing so, the most important question is ‘How much do I need?’

“A lot of people just pick a number out of thin air, but that’s a poor way to go about it,” says Jack Dewald, president of Agency Services, Inc., Memphis, Tenn. Dewald is a past chairman of the Life and Health Foundation for Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping consumers understand insurance.

“Some agents will do a very elaborate needs analysis,” Dewald says. “The next question is ‘how long should it run for?’ and ‘what happens if the need exceeds the term?’”  Buyers should also ask about the provisions for renewing policies and converting them to whole life, should that become necessary, says Dewald.

To calculate your insurance needs, go to the Life Quotes, Inc. Life Insurance Needs Calculator.

But of course, you may not know in advance whether or not you’ll need to renew or convert, which means that “a periodic reevaluation is in order,” Dewald says, though a change in policy provisions may mean a change in requirements or premium price because of your advancing age.

Buyers often have fears about any potential physical risks that may have disqualified them for coverage. Such fears are often unwarranted, adds Dewald.

“Only 15 percent of those who apply for life insurance qualify for the very top rates, but that doesn’t mean the other 85 percent are refused coverage,” says Dewald. “Almost everybody can get it,” he says. “You may not get the absolute best rate, but you can get it.”

Here’s where an experienced agent who handles multiple carriers comes in handy.

“There’s a lot of nuance in what carriers charge for different products,” Dewald notes. “Any good agent will know which carriers are more likely to be more receptive to different buyers.”

Six Questions you should ask your agent

1. How long does my physical exam take and can it be done at my place of business? – Unless you get a policy as part of your employee benefits, a short physical exam is often required when you sign up, especially if you’re older. Usually, this takes about 30 minutes and includes a blood pressure check and blood and urine samples plus questions about your current and past health status, according to the LIFE Foundation, lifehappens.org website

If a nurse is performing the examination, you might be able to have the exam performed at home or place of business; however, some policies require a physician’s exam, which means a visit a doctor’s office or clinic. Know your options when discussing the examination with your insurer.

2. Can I update my beneficiaries online and can I name a contingent beneficiary in case my primary beneficiary outlives me? – The beneficiary of your policy is the person or legal entity – a trust, estate, organization or institution – that you name to receive the death benefit (don’t name your pets: they’re not persons). Some insurers now allow you to change the beneficiary online, which makes updating insurance policies much easier.

3. What about contestability? – Policies usually name the circumstances under which the death benefit wouldn’t be paid. These may vary by state, but usually, if a policy has been in effect for two years, it can’t be contested or revoked unless you stop paying premiums. If you die within two years after purchasing a life insurance policy, the company has the right to fully investigate your death, whereas after two years, the insurer typically must pay the full death benefit. However, an insurer may also refuse to pay the claim if you misled, misrepresented or withheld important information about yourself when you applied for the policy. Ask your agent if that is subject to the contestability period limit?  Also, what happens if the death benefit claim is denied? (Usually, the amount of the premiums paid is returned to the beneficiary, probably with interest.) Find out the details for your state. For more about contestability clauses, read: “What is a life insurance contestability clause?”

4. What are my options for paying premiums? – Your term life policy may have level premiums or renewable premiums. A level premium means you pay the same rate for the length of the policy, whereas a renewable premium rate fluctuates. Do you have that choice? There’s also usually a limit on the age at which you can renew a term life insurance policy (usually age 75, but there are some policies that go up to the age of 95). What are the limits in your area, and will renewal involve new requirements?

5. How can I be impacted by a lapsed policy? – Being late with a premium payment may not be as awful as you think: most term life policies allow a 30- to 31-day grace period for you to make the payment before the insurer cancels your policy. Still, that one-day difference can be key. If your policy is canceled, getting it reinstated may require a new contestability period, a higher premium, and/or another physical exam. Moreover, a lapsed policy could end up as a black mark on your credit report, and the insurer may hesitate to cover you again. Know the fine points of your own policy. And if you’re having trouble paying the premium, look for other ways to save on your policy instead of just canceling it. Talk to your agent and find out what the procedure is for lapsed policies.

6. Can I still get an ROP term life insurance policy? –  Contrary to popular belief, some insurers still offer return-of-premium or ROP term life policies. It’s just what it sounds like: after the term ends, the premium paid is returned to you. However, premiums for such policies are higher than those for regular term policies. Similarly, converting to a whole life insurance policy will also cost significantly more because part of your premium will be diverted to the cash value account. Moreover, you have most of the same probable trade-offs that you would with reinstating a lapsed policy (new exam, new contestability period, etc.). This may or may not apply to renewing a term life policy. For more about ROP insurance policies, read: “The benefits of return of premium life insurance.”

This article was originally published by Life Quotes, Inc.