Impaired Risk Underwriting

At Independent Life Brokerage, we take a proactive approach to underwriting your impaired risk cases. It’s not enough just to submit the medical exam and attending physician statement. The key to successful placement of your cases is thinking strategically about how best to approach the underwriting process.

We leverage our knowledge of underwriting manuals, the way different carriers look at specific impairments and the way impairments affect one another. We use this knowledge, along with our experience and network of strategic relationships, to secure you more favorable underwriting offers. We follow these principles to ensure success:

1. The Presentation of Your Case to a Carrier Counts.

After discussing the aspects of the case, we contact handpicked underwriters at carriers to let them know where we want to end up and why we believe we can get there. In a cover letter, we address medical or financial issues and explain the positive factors that should mitigate these risks.

2. Knowing Your Client is Crucial.

The more information you can find out about your client, the more easily we can build a story to help an underwriter feel comfortable assessing the risk.

3. We Don’t Argue. We Negotiate.

We provide evidence of the underwriting offer we desire, and help carriers identify credits that should be considered, such as lifestyle, regular doctor visits and access to health care. This aggressive but collaborative approach helps us negotiate to a conclusion that the client’s underlying medical condition does not significantly increase his or her mortality from the standard population.

4. We Are Underwriters’ Allies, Not Their Foes.

By developing goodwill with the underwriters we work with, we are often able to win little battles along the way that help achieve the desired results.

5. We Read the Medical Records.

It’s not unusual for medical records to contain incomplete or incorrect information. Often a doctor will write a note for himself, not considering that someone else may misinterpret it. We review the records to make sure the information is consistent and logical and pertains to the correct patient.

6. We Are Selective with Trial Applications in Order to Have High Placement Ratios.

Knowing how different carriers view certain impairments, we limit your trial applications to the top few companies that are most likely to accept your client’s medical condition. Combined with our knowledge of carrier pricing, this allows us to find you favorable offers on the most competitively priced products. Once we secure the offer you want, we can help expedite placement of that case.