For normal, healthy, young, non-smoking people; it is very easy to buy life insurance for their family members. It is a sensible move to buy life insurance to safeguard the future of your loved ones in your youth. After middle age or old age, it becomes a bit difficult to go through a medical exam or a strict underwriting.
If a person is afflicted with any serious medical condition, it becomes really hard to buy a good life insurance policy. As with HIV-Positive people or Cancer patients, it is quite difficult to qualify for a suitable life insurance policy.
- Can you buy life insurance for cancer patients after diagnosis?
- What types of life insurance policies are available for cancer patients?
- What is remission?
- What is the waiting period for qualifying for life insurance after cancer?
- Which life insurance types are better for me after 2-10 years of remission therapy?
- How much is the cost of cancer life insurance?
Can you buy life insurance for cancer patients after diagnosis?
It becomes really hard to qualify for any life insurance policy after diagnosis, but it is possible. Yes! You can buy small coverage typical policies for life insurance afterwards too.
What types of life insurance policies are available for cancer patients?
Once a person is diagnosed with Cancer, his chances for buying a life insurance policy drop. It is slim picking, the only options available till he enters the remission process are:
- Burial Insurance
- Guaranteed Acceptance
- Group Life Insurance by Employer
Note for Life insurance for stage 4 cancer patients: The above-mentioned three policies are available for even stage 4 cancer patients.
What is remission?
Remission is the treatment procedure for cancer. After receiving the treatment consistently for about 2 to 10 years, your eligibility becomes higher with life insurance firms. There is a waiting period even then. The waiting period differs for different types of cancers.
What is the waiting period for qualifying for life insurance after cancer?
Firstly, lets list the factors that affect the length of the waiting period:
- Cancer type
- Cancer invasiveness
- Chances for cancer recurrence
According to the independent life insurance agent “Trusted Choice”, the waiting period is:
- Bladder cancer: 2 years
- Bone cancer: 5 years
- Breast cancer: 2 years
- Cervical cancer: 1 year
- Colon cancer: 2 years
- Kidney cancer: 3 years
- Leukemia: 10 years
- Lung cancer: 3 years
- Lymphoma: 2 years
- Metastatic cancer: 5 years
- Ovarian cancer: 3 years
- Prostate: 1 year
- Rectal cancer: 2 years
- Skin melanoma: 1 year
Which life insurance types are better for me after 2-10 years of remission therapy?
After remission, the cancer patient’s life expectancy increases drastically and they are termed as cancer survivors. Life insurance for cancer survivors includes following options:
Term life
After successful remission for 5 to 10 years, you can buy term life insurance for 10-20 years. It has fixed and cheap premiums. If you die within your term, your dependents will get the death benefit payout.
Whole life
It is a permanent life policy with a good coverage, and offers fixed pricey premiums. It lasts your lifetime. This covers many expenses of your loved ones after you pass away. This offers you a cash value for some withdrawals while you’re alive.
Universal life
It is also a permanent policy with great death benefit payout. It has heavy premiums and it offers cash value to use during lifetime. The cash value can be invested in stock or index for certain types of universal life policy.
Burial insurance
Burial insurance is compulsory to buy because it covers your final expenses after your death. It is small coverage $25,000 and covers the funeral ceremony arrangements and medical bills. It pays out in 24-48 hours after claim approval.
Simplified issue
You do not have to give a medical exam for it, it is also relatively cheaper for premiums. It has no waiting period and pays out instantly after claim approval. You have to answer some health questions, that’s all.
Guaranteed issue
No medical exam, no health queries, everyone can apply, everyone gets accepted. This is expensive and you have to be 45 years old or more. It comes with a 2 years’ waiting period. It has small coverage too.
Group life by employer
It is available for cancer patients after diagnosis too. It is a small coverage $50,000 policy. This is given to you by the employer as long as you do not move on to the next job. No health questions or medical exam needed for it.
How much is the cost of cancer life insurance?
The cost of life insurance policy for a normal person is 4 times less costly than for a cancer patient. In fact, let’s consider the real life example of Wilson Coffman.
In 2019, Wilson Coffman was diagnosed with colon cancer while he was buying life insurance for the second time. Wilson works as an independent life insurance agent in Huntsville, Alabama.
When Coffman bought the life insurance policy for the first time, when he was normal, he bought a $500,000 coverage policy. He kept paying monthly premiums of $100 for it. Then he got diagnosed with colon cancer, and he kept paying the same $100 premiums for his previous policy.
Due to growing expenses, Coffman bought a second life insurance policy of the same coverage of $500,000. This time he was applying as a cancer patient in the process of remission. The same policy monthly premium was $800, for him.
Wilson Coffman quoted his own example, to raise awareness amongst people that getting afflicted with cancer can make buying life insurance almost impossible for you.
Another important factor to understand is: The Classifications system to determine life insurance rates for individual applicants:
- Super preferred
- Preferred
- Standard
- Substandard
Anyone who has a high-risk job, or high-risk hobbies, or high-risk habits, or is an HIV-Positive patient, or is a chain smoker, or a substance abuser, or a cancer patient is included in the “Substandard” or “Table-Rating” category. Life insurance rates are the highest for people who fall in this category. Click here to get a quote from Insure Guardian!