Back in May, I wrote about the importance of proper term life insurance coverage to take care of your loved ones and my lack of ability to lose weight. At the time I decided I just needed to get the coverage. That search led me to both lose weight and take the steps towards securing more coverage.
When I started looking, Christy sent me a video of someone singing the praises of a company named Bestow. She stated that she had health issues and didn’t want them being dug into, but Bestow was the perfect fit because they don’t require any health exams.
That sounded great. Quick, easy, no exam. I went to their site to get an estimate. I about fell out of my seat. For 1 million at a 20 year term it was $2,400 a year! At the time, I was using 225 lbs. for my weight. I started playing around with the estimator to see how much losing weight could save me and found that once it got to 200 lbs. or less, the premium stopped decreasing and the premium bottomed out at $1,410.
It really does look like a great, quick, and easy option for someone that has underlying health conditions to get coverage – no questions asked. But since I don’t fall into that category, I would rather get a medical exam and save money.
Seeing that rate drop $1,000 is what gave me the motivation to tighten my belt, literally, and lose weight. Before, I was eating healthier, but I guess I was eating too much healthy food.
I started eating smaller portions and exercising more. In just a couple of months I was able to lose nearly 30 lbs. and get below the 200 lbs. mark. When I started calling for quotes, I already had pricing from last year for a couple and the new quotes for significantly lower than last time.
Now that I see that I could do it, that gives me the motivation to keep it off. I don’t want to get too skinny. I’m satisfied with where I’m at. Now I just have to work at maintaining it.
During this time of getting new quotes, I revamped my Life Quotes sheet on my spreadsheet and started looking up the best companies online. There are many lists out there and I called about 10, but I narrowed the pricing down to four: Zander Insurance, Select Quote, AIG Direct, and Health IQ. They all had the lowest and were very competitive with each other.
Select Quote
Select Quote had good pricing, but we never progressed to a medical exam. We had a hard time connecting and just played phone tag.
AIG Direct
AIG came back with much higher pricing than the original quote because I lost a significant amount of weight in a year, so they added half of that weight back on to my numbers. They said I could get a policy now and reapply after a year of my weight being stable to get a better rate, but I’ll pass.
Zander Insurance
Zander had the lowest pricing for a 20 year $750,000 policy and the gentlemen said it didn’t need an exam. I still wanted to get the 1 million pricing with the exam to make the best decision, but after I completed the application, their communication was very poor.
After 2 weeks I gave up on them. I even tried calling them direct to get the status on if there was going to be an exam. The contact at the application department said she was having issues with her computer and asked if she could call me back in a few minutes. I never heard back.
Health IQ
That brings us down to Health IQ. Christy and I spoke last night and decided to go with the 1 million term policy.
Running the numbers
I added up what we would spend on my current $250,000 policy over the next 13 years and the $750,000 policy for the next 20 years and it totaled $19,880. The 1 million policy will be $20,784 for the next 20 years.
If you divide that $904 difference over 7 years (the difference between the remainder of my current $250,000 term and the 20 year term of the new policy) that’s like paying $129 a year for that gap to have an extra $250,000 when we are currently paying $260 annually.
If something should happen right after our current policy is up, Christy would only be 51. I feel more comfortable paying that extra $129 a year to get her to a point where all of the kids are old enough to be out of the house.
By the time the new policy expires, we will have enough in retirement to where we will be self insured. That will be a good feeling.