By Karen Caffarini, Life Quotes, Inc.

When Apple announced that its co-founder and driving force, Steve Jobs, had pancreatic cancer, Wall Street and the company’s millions of die-hard fans took a deep breath.

Many were aware that pancreatic cancer usually isn’t detected until its final stages, when survival rates are slim, and they feared what would happen to the company when Jobs, considered to be synonymous with Apple, was gone.

Jobs, 56, wasn’t able to beat the form of cancer that claims an average of 37,660 lives each year, most of whom are older than 65, according to the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, but he did leave the company on firm footing for at least five years with future products in place. And unlike most people, he was in the position to be able to obtain additional life insurance after his diagnosis if he wanted, to ensure the financial well-being of his family.

Individuals being treated for pancreatic cancer generally won’t be able to get life insurance until after they have demonstrated to be cancer-free for a period of time, William M. Tilford, of Tilford Consulting in Chicago, says. With pancreatic malignancies, there is a very poor five-year survival rate, so many companies will wait until a patient has been cancer-free at least that long, sometimes longer.

“Afterwards, you still would be unlikely to get standard rates, your premium would probably be extremely expensive, perhaps prohibitively so, until you were free of malignancy for a period closer to perhaps 10 years,” Tilford says.

Individuals who were treated for the disease a few years ago, didn’t have metastatic cancer and are considered cancer-free, should bring their pathology and surgical reports and a letter from their physician regarding their current status when seeking insurance.

“Even if a company might consider you, it is possible that the extra premium (probably a flat extra amount per thousand dollars of coverage) will be beyond your reach, and remember that the companies to which you apply will still go for your complete medical records as part of the process,” Tilford says.

Ryan Pinney, senior financial planner with Roseville, Calif.-based Pinney Insurance Co., says chances of someone with pancreatic cancer obtaining traditional life insurance are practically zero.

“To get insurance you’d have to beat the disease and survive an additional 10 years. That’s really unlikely with pancreatic cancer,” Pinney says.

The National Cancer Institute says the five-year survival rate if the cancer is confined to the pancreas is 21.5 percent, is 8.7 percent if it spreads to regional lymph nodes and just 1.8 percent if it has metastasized.

Pinney says there are four options that some people might be able to consider, however.

Pinney says for business owners or executives of a large company, like Jobs was, the best choice is to purchase a corporate group policy for executives in the company. Pinney says no medical questions are asked if there are enough people included in the policy and policyholders could get up to $1 million in coverage. Small businesses probably won’t have enough eligible people to purchase this policy, Pinney says.

Another option, Pinney says, is to purchase accidental death and dismemberment insurance. However, this will only pay out if the policyholder dies in an accident before the cancer claims him or her, he says.

Graded death and final expense plans are other possibilities, but Pinney says they are very limited. He says graded plans increase in value each year, with the break-even point possibly not taking place until year seven.  He says the policy may not pay as much as the policyholder pays into the account if the policyholder dies in the first couple years.

The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network is a non-profit support group that provides information on current research, funding, survivor stories and pancreatic cancer symptoms and treatment.

Final expense, also called burial insurance, can be very expensive for a very low amount paid upon death, Pinney says. He says the TV commercials talk about the low monthly cost for the insurance, but don’t say they are showing the pricing for a low-paying policy.

This article was originally published by Life Quotes, Inc.