This article will provide an American Bar Association (ABA) life insurance review. We will evaluate the products they offer to their members.
For instant life insurance quotes from over 60 top rated carriers, please refer to the quote tool on the left side of this page.
The American Bar Association (ABA) Life Insurance Review – Their Affiliation Fidelity Life
The ABA offers attorneys an array of benefits, including life and disability insurance. The ABA works with USI Affinity for life insurance. USI serves over 500 associations, so they are a very large organization. The life insurance company used by USI is with Fidelity Life and the product they offer is called Rapid Decision Life.
Fidelity Life has an A- rating by AM Best. Other financial information about this life insurance company can be found on their website here.
There is only one life insurance product offering available through USI Affinity for attorneys. Their Rapid Decision product is a unique product. As the name implies, the strength of this life insurance policy is the short amount of time it takes for a policy to issue. A policy that requires an exam (measurements, blood pressure, lab tests, physician records) involves a longer process, but it allows healthy applicants to qualify for very low rates.
Surprisingly, the American Bar Association has just one affinity partner for life insurance. Attorneys can also find other life insurance products (through New York Life Insurance Company) through the American Bar Endowment. We review their term life insurance offerings in an article here.
Back to the review of the Rapid Decision Life product. Some of the features of this unique product are listed below:
- The application involves health questions only.
- An underwriting decision (approval or declination) is usually made within 48 hours.
- The “initial” policy involves a blend of level term life AND accidental death insurance (pays for deaths only due to accidents).
- After the policy is issued with the “blend” of coverage, the policyholder has up to 6 months to get an exam completed.
- The exam allows the insured to improve the blend (less accidental death insurance) IF the results are good.
- If the exam results are poor, the insured keeps the same level of benefits that were originally issued.
- Various life insurance term periods are offered: 10, 15, 20, and 30 year.
Fidelity Life’s Rapid Decision Life insurance is unusual, but could appeal to people who are concerned that an exam may turn up health problems that would result in a declination or rated-up policy.
However, there are many other carriers who offer simplified issue or “non medical” policies. These policies involve limited health questions and are usually approved within 48 hours.
Does Fidelity Life Have Competitive Term Life Rates for Attorneys?
It is difficult to determine exactly what rates they offer since they do not provide an instant term life quoting tool. Also, Fidelity Life does not disclose what percentage of the initial term product is standard term life versus accidental death. Accidental death policies are very low cost.
They do provide sample rates and that is usually an indication of a 10-year level term with the best underwriting class. In this case a male, age 35 can get a $1,000,000 10-year term for $35.24 per month. If you check on our instant quote tool, you will see several carriers that offer the same product for between $22 and $26 per month.
Fidelity Life requires people to fill out a form requesting contact by one of their agents. As I mention in another article, attorneys are busy people and don’t like to waste time talking to agents trying to sell them their life insurance products – especially when they only have one product to sell.
Obtaining Life Insurance coverage as quickly as possible.
As mentioned earlier, there are many companies that will provide immediate approvals based on an application with limited health questions. Since the carriers are taking on higher risk insureds, the premiums are higher. It’s a trade-off. If you call us we will provide you with a comparison quote so we can show you the very best simplified issue carriers with the lowest rates.
Let’s say you are concerned that you might have a serious health condition because you haven’t seen the doctor in long time and haven’t been taking good care of your health. In this case, a simplified issue policy with no medical exam would make sense.
Once the policy is issued, you can then apply for a much lower cost term life policy that requires an exam. If you’re approved at a better rate, simply replace the policy. If not, then keep your current policy.
If you are heading on a trip overseas in the next few weeks and are worried that you don’t have life insurance coverage to provide for your loved ones, then you can either get a simplified issue policy or bind coverage on a standard term life policy.
If an attorney is seeking just lost life insurance coverage from a law firm due to a job change and decided to purchase a personal policy, having immediate coverage can provide needed peace of mind.
Binding life insurance coverage with a temporary life insurance agreement.
Almost all carriers will allow applicants to bind coverage up to a certain limit – usually $1 million. This means that the life insurance coverage is effective as soon as the application is completed, with the initial premium payment AND the exam is completed. An exam can normally be scheduled within just a few days.
The temporary life insurance will cover the insured’s death by accident or other health conditions. Once the exam results are completed, if it turns out the proposed insured has serious health conditions, then the application could be denied. Also, death that occurred due to a condition discovered to be pre-existing by the underwriter would not be covered.
Binding life insurance involves signing an agreement often called a Temporary Life Insurance Agreement and provides coverage up to 60 days. This provides an important level of comfort, knowing that if something happens during the underwriting process, coverage is in force.
The time it takes to get a policy issued
When applicants apply for a term life policy (that includes a medical exam) through us, the average time for a policy to issue is between 3 to 5 weeks. The reason for the much faster process is due to how we are extremely proactive in dealing with underwriters and case managers.
The average time for a policy to issue in the life insurance industry is 10 to 12 weeks. Sometimes, the process can drag on because it’s tough to obtain records from doctors offices. However, we anticipate these hold-ups and do our best to expedite the process.
Attorneys and other professionals who value their time appreciate our proactive approach to the application process.
We are here to help throughout the process – from beginning to end – so feel free to call us with any questions you might have.
