In this edition of our Underwriters Expert Series, we’re uncovering the risks associated with lung cancer – beyond cigarettes. Learn about other causes of this fatal disease and why life underwriters need to look at more than smoking status for assessment.
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Thanks for joining the sixth week of our Underwriting Expert Series. So far, you’ve learned about several key concepts for life underwriters including underwriting mature ages, the impact of marijuana and the opioid crisis on insurance. This week, Senior Underwriter, Elliott Dickson explores abnormal kidney functions in younger ages.
In Part 1 of our Global Trends in Life Insurance series, we looked at product innovations in wearable tech, the offering of coverage to HIV-afflicted clients and the switching to non-smoker class rates for marijuana users. In Part 2 of this series, we will focus on millenials and wearable technnology trends, as well as quicker and simple medical testing that can provide instant results.
When it comes to innovation in the life insurance space, developing products that attract the millennial generation seems to be a major trend in the US. And it is something that will likely expand to other areas of the world as the millennial generation gains more buying power. Nonetheless it is definitely on our radar for global trends in life insurance product innovations.
While our friends at Cookhouse Lab are currently tackling this challenge in an innovation sprint, I am going to look at what is currently happening in the market.
The speed of the life insurance industry can be excruciatingly slow. But as new technology emerges, the more agile insurers will move to harness it in the hopes of enhancing existing product lines or constructing new ones altogether. So too is there a need to attract new markets and generations to buy in to life insurance – the baby boomer population is aging, and perhaps that pool of insurance clients has become a bit exhausted.
With the vast majority of the insured population being over the age of 45, the focus must eventually shift to a younger demographic. What are some of the ways that insurers are approaching this? What new products are being employed to appeal to older or substandard risk populations? In this blog I’ll explore what’s making waves in the sea of life insurance ahead.
This is Part III of our Underwriting Liver Function Blog Series
This is Part II of our Underwriting Liver Function Blog Series
Remember when the movie Sound of Music taught us ‘when you read you begin with A-B-C and when you sing you begin with Do-Re-Mi’? Even if you haven’t seen the movie I am sure you remember using the ABC song to learn the alphabet. The moral of the story is that songs were and are used to make learning key concepts easier. I figured, why not find out if singing a song (even if it’s in your head) can help underwriters remember key tests to conduct when underwriting liver function. Sounds a little crazy I know, but you’ll be singing along with me in no time!
This is Part I of our Underwriting Liver Function Blog Series.
Picture this. You are visiting the doctor for a check-up, answering a slew of questions to help them understand your current state of health. Waiting slowly but surely for that dreaded question (at least for some of us!) to come up... 'How many drinks do you have on average per week?'. At the risk of sounding 'unhealthy' you fudge the numbers slightly - perhaps subtract one or two or four.
Sound like a familiar confession? Perhaps you leave the appointment thinking - does my doctor really know how much I drink? We'll, I can't speak from a doctor's perspective, but as a life underwriter, this information is something I care about getting to the bottom of. This information is critical to our profession in order to be able to determine over-consumption of alcohol and its effect on the liver.
I'll be sharing a series of blogs on underwriting liver function to provide fellow underwriters with an informative summary of tests to evaluate liver disorders, and what you can infer from them. But before I dive in, let’s answer the question that is on your mind.
My colleague recently explored how to change the traditional mindset of life underwriters when assessing the risk of an HIV positive individual. This is just one of the elements the underwriting industry has been tasked to address with the recent introduction of HIV coverage. Today, I am taking a different angle of this hot topic to explore the intricacies and concerns for underwriting HIV+ cases.
In Part I of this mini-series I provided some quick tips every underwriter should know when underwriting a new demographic. With the rise of globalization - it’s becoming more and more likely that underwriters will have to adjust to foreign markets. Which is why I felt this was an important topic to cover. To recap, underwriting a new market successfully, involves embracing differences, learning the rules and being open to new experiences. Now that you have the right approach, let’s apply it to a specific region that’s been of growing interest to the insurance world: The Asia Pacific Market.
The globalization trend has yielded new prospects for insurers and reinsurers alike. Many companies have set their eyes on exploring new markets such as South and Central Americas, the Middle East, and both South and East Asia. Advancements in technology make these markets more and more accessible and these new demographics provide underwriters with exciting new opportunities.
BUT underwriting a new demographic also means you are venturing into a new culture. This means different expectations, ways of doing business and ways of life in general. Having had experience in underwriting a new market, I’ve come to think of it as a similar experience to travelling to a new country. There’s a whole lot of learning, adjusting and embracing to do. To get you prepared for your next foreign market experience I’ve put together Four Tips for Conducting Business in a New Culture. Whether you are an underwriter or not – consider my advice below to ensure success in conducting business in a new culture.
