AboutMichael Feinberg, ChFC Expertise I am the Executive Director of Synergy Financial Services, concentrating in
life insurance, long term care insurance, and long-term and tax-advantaged
investing. I am licensed for Life, Health, and Securities. I am always happy to answer any questions you may have on any of these
topics.
Question My husband's life insurance policy has lapsed. I am planning to add him to my work life insurance policy when our open enrollment begins in October. However, 3 weeks ago he went to the doctor and they found light chain in his blood. From what the doctor has told us and the research I have done, based on the ratio of the immuglobins (kappa to lamda), this disease is cancer of the blood. His doctor is sending him to an Oncologist in 2 weeks. So we have no official diagnosis. They have only detected this in his blood. Since he has not been diagnosed with anything right now, can we get life insurance and this not be considered a pre-existing condidition? We need life insurance on him. Any suggestions? He is a veteran if that helps.
Answer I'm very sorry to hear about what seems like will be a very challenging time ahead. Unfortunately, most insurance applications ask pretty broad questions when it comes to not only diagnosis but also testing, symptoms, etc of medical conditions. It would be hard and most likely quite unethical to attempt to circumvent the medical prequalification of a medioal question where there is reason to believe there is a medical condition simply because an "official diagnosis" has not yet been announced.
I would suggest looking at the specific wording of the medical questions of any application for insurance you are considering. Any insurance requiring medical qualification via a medical exam would likely uncover the same abnormalities in the blood and not issue coverage based on that. I'm sorry I don't have more positive solutions but with the exception of "guaranteed issue" life insurance policies where medical questions are not asked (but coverage is quite limited and expensive), I don't know if I could suggest a reasonable alternative.
