Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

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cardman08
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Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by cardman08 »

My parents had purchased a whole life insurance policy when I was born. I took 'ownership' of the policy within the last few months and I recently cashed out the policy and purchased a term life insurance plan a week ago.

I understand that standard practice of the underwriting process is a medical exam. But, I was surprised when they called to schedule and they said they would be visiting my home. Has anyone else had a home medical exam? Do they do the full routine or do they just take certain metrics (blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc) at home?

Should I prepare to have blood spilled on my carpet? :)

Thanks
Rupert
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by Rupert »

They often do them at home because people are uncomfortable giving urine and blood samples at work or elsewhere. You can expect to give urine and blood samples, but blood spilled on your carpet? Probably not. I remember there also being a blood pressure test and a lot of questions about medical history and current physicians. I believe most insurance companies contract the medical exam work out to home-healthcare nurses.
Last edited by Rupert on Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
Spirit Rider
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by Spirit Rider »

It is very common for life insurance medical exams to be done in your home. Apparently, only insurance companies still do house calls.

And yes, they will draw blood for testing (hopefully, they don't spill it on your carpet).
Grt2bOutdoors
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

It's standard protocol. They will take your blood pressure (they'll take it at least 2x to get a fair bearing of your actual pressure), ask for a urine sample and take some blood. You should fast before the test (at least that is my recollection of the last one I did). Have a glass of water to speed some things up. :wink: Should take about 15-20 minutes. Don't have a fatty meal before your exam.
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Ted Valentine
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by Ted Valentine »

They will also take your height and weight and measure your waist and chest. Probably ask a bunch of medical history questions.
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dhodson
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by dhodson »

They do it that way bc it's cheaper.
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nisiprius
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by nisiprius »

Yes. For term insurance I had exams, twice--one at work, one at home. It was neither perfunctory nor rigorous. In both cases, it was performed by someone with a credential other than MD. Nurse? Med tech? The sort of things a doctor gets through in the first few minutes of an exam. Height, weight, blood pressure, auscultation, temperature. Oh, right, measuring circumference of my body with a tape measure in several places to see whether I had the healthy apple shape or the dreaded pear shape. Two-page history mostly touching only on whether I had had fairly serious things.

Took maybe twenty minutes.

At one of them, the tech took my blood pressure, said "hmmm... that's a little high. Mind if I try your other arm?" Tried my other arm, it was lower, he wrote down the lower number.

To the best of my recollection: no disrobing beyond rolling up my sleeve, no DRE, no "turn your head and cough."

The creepiest part of it concerned AIDS, which was still fairly unfamiliar at the time--people were still making jokes about "but how can I convince my parents that I'm Haitian?" But the insurance companies were onto it.
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LAlearning
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by LAlearning »

nisiprius wrote:Yes. For term insurance I had exams, twice--one at work, one at home. It was neither perfunctory nor rigorous. In both cases, it was performed by someone with a credential other than MD. Nurse? Med tech? The sort of things a doctor gets through in the first few minutes of an exam. Height, weight, blood pressure, auscultation, temperature. Oh, right, measuring circumference of my body with a tape measure in several places to see whether I had the healthy apple shape or the dreaded pear shape. --Reverse that :wink: Two-page history mostly touching only on whether I had had fairly serious things.

Took maybe twenty minutes.

At one of them, the tech took my blood pressure, said "hmmm... that's a little high. Mind if I try your other arm?" Tried my other arm, it was lower, he wrote down the lower number.

To the best of my recollection: no disrobing beyond rolling up my sleeve, no DRE, no "turn your head and cough."

The creepiest part of it concerned AIDS, which was still fairly unfamiliar at the time--people were still making jokes about "but how can I convince my parents that I'm Haitian?" But the insurance companies were onto it.
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user5027
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by user5027 »

I have had them both at work and at home. They include blood and urine samples. The last included an ekg. The nurse had a portable unit.
smackboy1
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by smackboy1 »

cardman08 wrote:I understand that standard practice of the underwriting process is a medical exam. But, I was surprised when they called to schedule and they said they would be visiting my home. Has anyone else had a home medical exam? Do they do the full routine or do they just take certain metrics (blood pressure, resting heart rate, etc) at home?
It's standard practice to send a nurse to your home or work to do it. It's very convenient and not as intrusive as an annual checkup with your MD. No stool sample, no inguinal hernia check, no bending over, no breast exam, none of that.

2 things they do check is blood pressure and take a portable EKG. If you suffer "white coat syndrome" i.e. your blood pressure gets elevated in the presence of a Dr. or nurse, being at home can help. It also helps to relax and think "happy thoughts". If you don't have a past history of hypertension and the read comes back greater than 120/80, if you just explain that you have white coat syndrome the nurse will give you another chance. Sometimes they will botch the EKG. If you establish a friendly rapport with the nurse, they will tell you if something is not normal and do a re-test.

The nurse botched my healthy wife's EKG and it showed an anomaly which bumped her premium up to the next group. Luckily we have a cardiologist friend who re-tested her so we could challenge the botched EKG. The point is, make sure the leads are firmly attached and don't do anything that could cause the EKG to misread.

Make sure you have an accurate history of your blood relatives' medical histories with dates.

Make sure you have an accurate history of your own medical history, drug use, tobacco use, hazardous activities etc. with dates.

Do not volunteer extraneous information. Sometimes something you think is irrelevant can change your insurance rating.
Disclaimer: nothing written here should be taken as legal advice, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
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mephistophles
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Re: Home Visit for Life Insurance Medical Exam

Post by mephistophles »

If you are uncomfortable with them coming to your home, you can arrange to have it done at their business office.
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