Medical Underwriting

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) - An Underwriting Enigma

Submitted by hankgeorge on Wed, 07/13/2011

When this underwriter began his career in 1970, this impairment was not recognized as a distinct clinical entity. Four decades later, it is affirmed as the leading cause of liver disease in (at least) the Western world.

NAFLD is much more than “just” a liver disorder. Indeed, its ubiquitous nature leaves underwriters at risk for understating the extent of its potential insurability implications.

Underwriting Hypertension

Submitted by hankgeorge on Wed, 07/13/2011

Hypertension (high blood pressure) affects almost 70 million Americans, and as such is one of the most common conditions encountered in medical underwriting. The association of elevated blood pressure with extra mortality has been known for many years, and insurance companies have maintained extensive statistics on assessing that risk.

The Compelling Argument for Discontinuing Our Use of Screening Exercise Electrocardiography in Life Underwriting

Submitted by hankgeorge on Sun, 03/01/2009

Hank George, FALU, CLU, FLMI
March 2009

 

Context

What are the two biggest underwriting-related concerns of senior management in direct-writing life insurers?

#1 – Reducing new business acquisition costs

#2 – Reducing application-to-issue cycle time

Both of these issues are conspicuous high priority agenda items in most companies.

The matter of business acquisition costs is, if anything, accentuated by the current economic environment.

 

What other goals are compelling in this regard?

  • Improve our image with consumers
  • Make it easier for customers to do business with us as a “financial services” industry
  • Facilitate – rather than obstruct – the flow of new business
  • Recruit and retain producers by offering accommodating requirements while preserving and enhancing favorable mortality

Enough Exceptionitis

Submitted by hankgeorge on Wed, 06/01/2005

Hank George, FALU, CLU, FLMI
Best's Review • June 2005

 

With “-itis”as the medical suffix for inflammation,“exceptionitis,”a convenient neologism, might be defined as an inflammatory process in the decision-making locus in the underwriter’s cerebral cortex. When unchecked by a countervailing force (judgement), it induces migraine-equivalents in that region of the reinsurer’s brain that accommodates patience in the face of rogue clients.

"Snake Oil" Pollutes Underwriting

Submitted by hankgeorge on Sat, 11/01/2003

Hank George, FALU, CLU, FLMI
Best's Review • November 2003

Our Achilles Heel?

Submitted by hankgeorge on Tue, 04/01/2003

Hank George FALU, CLU, FLMI
Broker World • April 2003

 

“…many adults currently choose CAM therapies to treat their most serious medical problems.”

David M. Eisenberg, MD,
Harvard University
Annals of Internal Medicine
135(2001):344

 

CAM is the new acronym for complementary and alternative medicine. Which, in turn, speaks to a broad array of therapeutic interventions—some ancient, others ultra-modern—standing at the gates of conventional medicine and finally being heard, as in:

  • Increasing the prevalence of their collective use by 25 percent in the final decade of the previous century.
  • Escalating the number of visits to their sundry practitioners over the same interval from 427 million to 629 million (an imposing number challenging primary care medicine).
  • Jacking up net expenditures for their goods and services by a staggering 45 percent to a total of $21 billion and climbing.
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