The soaring prices of insurance policies are becoming a major cause of concern for people these days. Insurance companies have become excessively vigilant in providing insurance to their customers.
The new parameters of evaluation are becoming much prominent than earlier as many people have understood the importance of buying insurance and want to avail themselves its benefits.
One such significant parameter that can noticeably affect the value of your premiums is your “family medical history”.
Why It’s Important to Insurers?
The insurance companies inquire about your family members, elders, parents, and grandparents in detail. They want to know every bit of details about their lifestyle and medical history.
This information gives them an idea of various issues about their prospective customer, such as:
- What can be the possible normal lifespan of the generations of this family? This majorly can determine the life expectancy span of the applicant. They can accordingly levy their premium terms.
- What are the good and bad lifestyle habits of the family that can affect the life and health of the applicant?
- What have been the chronic and persistent medical ailments in the family history that may be perceived by their customer through genes?
- This gives complete information on some of the serious life-threatening diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, tumor, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, high and low blood pressure, etc.
These factors help them to make a fair guess to determine the current and prospective medical condition of the policy buyer.
How Does Family Medical History Affect Premium?
In case of severe diseases recurring in the family medical history over generations, it is likely that the applicant may also be prone to them.
While determining the premiums of insurance for the customer, the companies account for the life expectancy conditions of the applicant.
They take their own risk probation into consideration while calculating the premiums. These facts and data help them in estimating the course of the health of their clients in the future which, unfortunately, holds true in most of the cases.
For example, if there is a medical history of diabetes at a certain age, it is possible that the person too will get it.
A higher risk of early death raises the amount of premium for the customer. This is in proportion to the higher risk side of the insurance company as well.
They try to cover their risk portion by increasing the amount of premium for their customer.
Some of the Main Points to be Known
Common Diseases Doesn’t Affect Much
Do not worry about 1 or 2 diseases in your family or some health degradation aspects in elderly people.
For example, if 1 member of your family suffered from high blood pressure and died, it will not have any impact on your insurance policy.
Similarly, if an elderly person over 60-65 years of age suffered from health problems at that age – it is also not taken into account. These are normal courses of life that are already accounted by the insurance companies.
You Ca Get the Policy but Premium May Become High
If your family medical history has been a phenomenon of bad health and diseases, there is going to be a lot of questioning and examining from you.
Although there are high chances that you will get the life insurance policy, you will just have to pay some higher premiums.
If there is one chronic ailment that persists in your family over the generations, this can be a cause of concern.
Depending on the severity of the issue the companies will grant you the insurance at a slightly higher price.
Health Issue that is Running Down
In some of the cases, if they realize that there are 1 or 2 medical conditions that have been running down in the family, the insurance companies just do not cover that particular ailment only.
The cost of insurance will not be high in this case only the policy will be debarred of that particular ailment coverage.
Conclusion
Although the rules and regulations are different in every insurance company, the family medical history holds high importance in determining the policy cost and premiums.
The best that you can do here is to understand the implications of these diseases in your lifespan and live a healthy life.
Over the course of time what matters is your health and the long-term benefits of the insurance policy.
