Disability Insurance Articles
How Your Health History Can Affect Your Disability Insurance Quotes
2010-11-27
Millions of people each year searching for the best disability insurance quotes already know that certain lifestyle factors and medical conditions can affect a health insurance quote and the amount of insurance one can buy. However, what many do not realize is that health history also affect disability insurance quotes and the overall ability to buy a policy at all.
Typically, those looking to receive disability insurance quotes expect to need the policy within the first two years of receiving the quote. What this means is that the person needing the policy already has a health history that warrants a disability insurance policy. A person's health history affects their disability insurance quote in many ways including making premiums higher and limiting the term and amount of insurance that a person can buy.
Some health history factors that directly affect disability premiums include most of the same factors that affect a person's health insurance quote. Smoking, heart problems such as a previous heart attack, heart disease, high cholesterol, back problems, breathing problems such as asthma and any other chronic medical problems all have the potential to make disability insurance quotes higher or even make a disability insurance policy completely unobtainable.
A health history that includes any types of surgery is another major factor that can affect disability insurance quotes. Any type of surgery including spinal, brain, bone settings, ear, nose and throat, surgeries, and even Cesarean sections (C-Sections), can severely limit the amount of insurance a person can receive and make quotes substantially higher.
The reason for this is because insurance companies do not typically consider the reason for the surgery, but instead the companies automatically assume that because surgery took place, something is medically wrong and the person represents a higher risk. The insurance companies believe that the person will likely become disabled because of the surgery or at least need follow-up care.
According to a report filed by the National Institutes of Health, many women who have had a C-section, but are otherwise healthy receive substantially higher disability insurance quotes than women who have never had a C-section and, sometimes, these same women cannot receive disability, health or life insurance policies at all. According to the report, most insurance companies believe that a specific medical problem caused the C-section, whether it is true or not and that something must be medically wrong otherwise surgery would not have been necessary. The company automatically raises the quoted rates.
Overall, many factors affect disability insurance quotes. A person's health history, while not the only factor that decides the quoted rates, is a major factor nonetheless, even if there is nothing medically wrong when the disability insurance quote is received.