Last Updated: August 2020
When you apply for life insurance, every company will ask about your annual income because they need to justify the amount of life insurance coverage you’re applying for.
Financial underwriting and life insurance go hand-in-hand and it is part of the process you need to accept and prepare for.
The rest of this brief article will have you in a much better position to do and give you a better understanding as to how financial underwriting can impact life insurance rates and approvals.
- Financial Underwriting In Life Insurance
- How Financial Underwriting Can Impact Life Insurance Approvals
- Financial Underwriting For Life Insurance Is Part Of The Process
Life Insurance is Boring. Let’s Get To The Root Of It! Here are the key takeaways…
Financial underwriting when applying for life insurance is part of the process with all life insurance companies. Life insurance companies need to ensure insurable interest is present and want to ensure that the amount of coverage requested is justified.
Financial Underwriting In Life Insurance
While the purpose of an application might be clear – family protection, juvenile insurance, buy-sell, or key person – the death benefit must align with your financial situation.
This means your annual income, household income, assets, and liabilities are required on most underwritten life insurance applications.
The life insurance companies don’t verify any of this so you won’t need to provide any documentation and most people “ballpark” their assets and liabilities.
However, you do need to provide this information on a life insurance application.
If the life insurance is for business purposes, they’ll require the same type of information and even more detailed information depending on the carrier and the exact purpose of coverage.
Just know that this information is required for all underwritten life insurance carriers.
Many people searching for life insurance financial underwriting topics are doing so because they’re trying to qualify for a bigger amount of coverage than an insurance company will issue them. Here are some tips that can help you get the coverage you need.
Tip #1: The Life Insurance Cover Letter
A “cover letter” is simply a letter drafted by the agent submitting your application painting your financial situation in the most favorable light possible.
Underwriters look at an application, medical records, and medical exam results to determine qualification – a cover letter submitted on top of your application adds a story and humanizes the case for an underwriter.
Great life insurance agents write great cover letters for their clients.
Unfortunately, most life insurance agents have no idea what to include in a cover letter, and when one is submitted, it focuses on case details that are more akin to trivia than the salient facts of the case.
So what makes a great cover letter?
A description of your job/business, what you do, how long you’ve been doing it. If household income is involved, provide details of the spouse too. You want to talk about why you need more coverage than normal.
Do you have a special needs child? Debts or circumstances beyond what’s considered normal?
I’ve seen both of those situations get exceptions recently.
A good cover letter for life insurance financial underwriting will also discuss specifics like your liquid assets, your primary residence equity, how much life insurance coverage you currently have (if it’s group coverage, many companies won’t count that against you).
That’s on top of the normal information like your income and net worth.
Tip #2: Look at different life insurance companies
Companies base their financial underwriting guidelines as multiples of income based on your age. Each company has different guidelines for different age groups. Some factor in net worth and some don’t. In other words, if one company won’t give you the amount of coverage you want, even after a cover letter – find a different company to work with.
Life insurance companies publish their underwriting guidelines for licensed agents to review. Your life insurance agent can comb through these guidelines quickly as they’re easily accessible.
They also allow you to either speak with an underwriter or email an underwriting desk (without your name attached to it) to “pitch” your financial situation and see what it would take to get you your desired amount of life insurance coverage.
Tip #3: Don’t be afraid to get a second opinion
If you truly believe you should be able to qualify for the amount of life insurance you want and you’re just not getting the answers you want, then look for a second opinion. Maybe your agent’s cover letter was poorly done or even non-existent.
Maybe your agent only had access to a couple of life insurance companies (there’s 100’s of life insurance companies out there).
So if your agent can’t get it done, seek out someone else – an expert in financial underwriting.
Just do a search online and you’ll find some (we’re one of them).
There’s a lot of life insurance agents that don’t have the experience to get these types of challenges through underwriting. A lot of life insurance underwriting is about relationships with underwriters or companies that can make exceptions.
How Financial Underwriting Can Impact Life Insurance Approvals
Here is a quick summary of how financial underwriting may affect your life insurance:
Family Protection
Family protection coverage provides income replacement/estate conservation for your spouse and/or children. It’s typically calculated as “multiple of income”. The younger you are, the higher the multiple.
Each company has different multiples, so if a life insurance company is limiting you on the amount of coverage you’re seeking, have your agent shop around.
While the primary focus is income when calculating personal insurance needs, net worth may also be considered.
Juvenile Insurance
Juvenile Insurance amounts generally range from $10,000 to $50,000 but amount up to $250,000 are not unusual.
If you’re applying for a high amount of coverage on a child, typically the parents and all siblings must carry equal coverage or have a very good reason to justify the amount.
The parent’s financial situation must also support the higher face amounts on the children.
Buy-Sell Coverage
Buy-Sell life insurance seeks to preserve existing assets from forced liquidation when a business owner or partner dies.
Life insurance companies will need to know the net worth or market value of the business along with each owners’ percentage interest and verification that all owners are either insured or seeking coverage for their proportionate share of the business.
Key Person
Key Person coverage insures against the loss of a key person’s expertise, skill and the revenue-producing ability for business.
As with family protection, key person coverage is based on a multiple of income typically ranging from 5-15, depending on your age.
The biggest key in qualifying for a higher death benefit if you’re on the cusp of the underwriting limits is to have your agent draft a “cover letter” explaining how the amount of individual life insurance was derived.
If it’s logical, well written, and detailed, then the underwriter will have no problem approving that amount.
Financial Underwriting For Life Insurance Is Part Of The Process
Going through the hassle of financial underwriting when applying for life insurance is not avoidable, unfortunately.
All life insurance companies will complete financial underwriting in one fashion or another.
The key is working with an agency that understands how to present your unique situation and financial background so that you can ultimately be approved for coverage at the best rates possible.
If you have any other questions regarding financial underwriting for life insurance, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
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