A. One of the most common impairments in life insurance underwriting is heart disease. It comes in many shapes and forms, as well as degrees of severity.
About Heart Disease and Heart Attack
The broad category of heart disease can include mild issues such as an abnormal EKG, palpitations, mitral valve prolapse, or chest pain (angina). More commonly seen moderate concerns are issues like cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias, and atrial fibrillation. Additionally, there is a high frequency of more severe cases of heart disease such as congestive heart failure, those needing valve replacements and/or pacemakers, and those with histories of myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) with bypass, angioplasty, and/or stenting.
Each of these categories of heart disease — and there are many more — will need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Typically, this needs to have the home office underwriter — and more commonly a senior underwriter or medical director — review the complete case to determine an accurate offer. This is not only to assess the severity of the presenting disease, but also to try to find healthy credits or favorable lifestyle characteristics that they may be able to use to improve the offer.
In next blogpost, we will discuss key factors for underwriting heart disease.