When working impaired risk life insurance cases there is no more thorough way to get to the best rate for your client than shopping the case. I’ve had dealings with general agents in the past who really hung their hat on one company or had an in house underwriter that would do the trial quotes for them.
For me as an independent agent working with a GA who only quotes, for instance, Banner Life, is that they are essentially turning me into a captive agent. One step worse would be a GA who has been with Banner so long that they believe they know the underwriting outcome on any particular health issue, so they just shoot from the hip. This would work if underwriters never changed jobs and underwriting guidelines never changed, neither of which is something you can count on. So, you end up quoting a client something that may or may not be the best company and may or may not be an accurate underwriting take on the issue.
The theory of having an in house underwriter is kind of neat. You don’t have to wait for quotes. This person is theoretically able to quote accurately for a number of life insurance companies across a broad range of health issues. The upside is that you aren’t held captive to one company. The downside is that, like the situation above the in house underwriter is going to shoot from the hip most of the time depending on underwriting manuals or guidelines or even worse, their memory. Again, because agencies that use in house underwriters generally only represent a few companies (no one can have a handle on say 20 companies), you still don’t know that you have the best rate available and you still don’t know the accuracy until it’s done.
The biggest problem with both of these scenarios is that you offer a quote and don’t have anything in writing to back it up. That one company general agent and the in house underwriter may email you a quote but, it doesn’t hold up if you have to fight for your client when the quote goes south.
When you shop a case with Special Risk Services it goes out to all the companies they represent and a quote comes back with an underwriters name and recommended rate class. When you send in your application, barring surprise information, the company will live with their trial quote.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss how to shop a case you can reach Rich or Tim Fuller at 800-933-5491 or rfuller@srsinc.com and tjfuller@srsinc.com.
-By Ed Hinerman, manager of Risk Life Insurance and Hinerman Group.