Manulife increases testing limits for insurance policies

Manulife will now underwrite term life insurance without requiring people to meet with paramedical staff for testing for policies of up to $1 million. This rule will apply to eligible applicants between the ages of 18 and 40.

Applicants with diagnosed medical conditions, such as heart disease or diabetes, may not qualify for the new testing limit. These applicants will be required to provide additional information similar to current industry practices.

The previous testing limit was $250,000 to apply without the requirement of fluids, such as blood, and that has been the industry standard for close to 20 years. Now, Manulife will use new analytic tools to process historical customer data as well as information from public sources. This new process may reduce the turnaround time for applications to less than a week, versus four weeks.

Read:

• What’s in store for permanent insurance
• Are digital insurance apps good for clients?

“Manulife is the first insurer in Canada to raise [its] limit,” says Marianne Harrison, president and CEO of Manulife Canada. She adds Manulife wants to make the insurance application process easier to meet people’s needs.

According to a LIMRA Canadian Life Insurance Ownership study, almost half of Canadian households say they’d have trouble meeting everyday living expenses if a primary wage earner died.

And, a Manulife study finds 43% of middle-market Canadians have no individual life insurance. Further, while many people rely on group coverage, 27% have no group life insurance. Plus, 70% of those with coverage have less than $500,000 of life insurance.

Read: Should clients cash out an insurance policy?

Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.