If you have HIV or Aids and have looked into life insurance, or burial insurance coverage, you have probably been told repeatedly that you won’t qualify for coverage. This can be frustrating! But guess what? There’s some good news for you:
If another agent tells you that you can’t obtain a policy, please contact us! We will show you what companies can offer you coverage!
Living with HIV/AIDS is still conditioning for thousands of Americans, even after years of advancements in medicine. Properly treated HIV infections are rarely lethal, but still, with over 38,000 new cases diagnosed in 2017 in the US alone, burial and life insurance carriers are reluctant to accept applications from those who are HIV Positive. Burial insurance coverage is often difficult to get for people with pre-existing conditions, even those that have improved their life expectancy over the last few years.
People with HIV/AIDS often struggle to find a burial insurance provider that is willing to offer them coverage, and the more you learn about the approval process, the more you realize that successive applications decrease the person’s chances of getting insured. More on that in a moment.
Now, the good news is, there are companies that offer certain kinds of burial insurance that are suitable for people with HIV/AIDS. There is more than one kind of burial insurance you can get, and it’s important to understand which ones they are and the difference between them, so you can pick the policy that is best for your current situation. So let’s discuss this matter.
The words “burial insurance” do bring a grim and dark ring to them, but it’s important to bear in mind that we are all meant to pass away sooner or later. Instead of looking away from this truth, thinking about finances from a young age will only make things better, and that includes things such as life insurance and burial insurance. The sooner you sit down and talk about it, the greater your chances to get the best deals and the most convenient quotations. If you are not sure exactly where to begin, click here, as we have covered where to start!
Most life and burial insurance companies will take applicants starting at age 25, but some of them are willing to accept applications from people of any age as long as they are legally able to sign up a contract. Burial insurance isn’t something most people think about when planning their finances, but it’s an advantage if you do manage to get an early start. If you are looking for burial insurance coverage for your parents, it’s generally a good idea to begin the conversation of burial insurance.
Burial insurance, just as any other kind of insurance, is a financial investment on the side of the company providing it. For this reason, they will want to assess the risk of losing money if they approve your application. The longer the person lives, the more premiums the life insurance company collects.
Inversely, if an applicant passes away soon after the policy was granted, and the company pays the full death benefit to the beneficiary, the company will pay out more than the premiums collected.
For this reason, the insurance carrier will ask a series of health questions, to see if an applicant qualifies for coverage or not. Unfortunately, one of the first questions all final expense insurance carriers will ask is:
Have you ever been treated for HIV or AIDS?
If you answer YES to this question, about 98% of all companies are going to automatically decline you. Even if the death rate of HIV+ people has plummeted and patients can live long and fulfilling lives with minimum viral load, most carriers still assume granting burial insurance to an HIV+ person is too much of a financial risk and decline the application.
So what options does a person with HIV or AIDS qualify for?
One of the easiest ways for a person with HIV/AIDS to get burial insurance is to apply for a guaranteed issue life insurance, which covers burial costs. The main difference between a guaranteed issue life insurance and a standard life insurance policy is that there are no health questions to qualify for. You are guaranteed to be accepted.
Here are some features of the policy:
At the time of death, the policy pays out the full death benefit to the named beneficiary. Depending on the insurance company you choose, payments are generally made in 2-3 business days. Also, Policies may be assigned to a Funeral home, where the benefit is paid straight to a funeral home. The insurance policy can be used to cover all the funeral costs and expenses.
With these policies, you simply complete a very simple application. The application will ask you for your pertinent information, a beneficiary, and your preferred payment information. That is it!!!
Applications can be completed on a paper application, or electronically. Once an application is completed and submitted, your policy is issued in about 1-2 days. It’s a very timely process, and you won’t wait around for days or weeks for a decision.
Of course, everything comes at a price, as guaranteed issue life insurance won’t provide an immediate death benefit. These policies are also a little more expensive when compared to traditional burial insurance policies
Since the insurance carriers will not ask any health questions and do not have any underwriting requirements, they will limit the amount of coverage they offer. Most guarantee acceptance policies offer $5000 to $25000 in coverage. If needing more than $25000 of insurance, you would have the option of taking out multiple policies. You are not restricted to the number of policies you own. The only restraint would be your financial budget.
Perhaps the main disadvantage of a guaranteed issue life insurance is that they pay far less than standard life insurance. The money that the beneficiary will get if you pass away should suffice to cover all the funeral and burial expenses, but won’t be enough to also cover their living expenses for a few years as traditional life insurance would.
Companies that will offer coverage include Gerber Life Insurance, Great Western Insurance Company, and AIG. All of these companies are highly rated, financially solvent, and most importantly will approve people for burial insurance, with HIV or Aids.
Since guaranteed issue life insurance applicants are likely to not be eligible for other forms of life insurance, the premium tends to be much higher. Companies are not asking any health questions, and there’s no form of underwriting. Due to this, companies are going to limit their risks. In our eyes, some amount of insurance is better than nothing at all! You may not be able to obtain $100,000 of life insurance, but you could still obtain $10,000 to $25,000 of final expense insurance. We feel it’s always worth it to have a burial insurance policy in place!
Regardless of your medical condition, you might be eligible for a funeral trust. This is a type of trust fund that is paid directly to the funeral house, although the transfer is often arranged through an insurance provider. Furthermore, you can use your life insurance funds to cover the price for the funeral trust, which now the funeral house will hold instead of the insurance company.
Just as any other form of trust fund, a funeral trust has some advantages, mostly regarding taxes but also how these expenses are represented to Medicaid; if you decide to go the funeral trust route, you won’t be forced to terminate your deal should you move to long term care, as would happen if you take out standard burial insurance.
Funeral trusts can be revocable or irrevocable – often the irrevocable being cheaper and more accessible. If you decide to set an irrevocable funeral trust, you won’t be able to get your money back, just exchange the credit for another funeral service. However, if the funeral house which holds your funeral trust goes out of business or you move to a different location, the fund can be transferred to another funeral house.
Whatever the case is, most funeral houses will not ask any questions about your medical conditions or your life expectancy. Even when they do, if you state you have HIV/AIDS, you will still get to set the funeral trust, but you might get a refund instead of a covered funeral if you come to pass within the first months of the deal – the amount is set at the moment of closing said deal. This is called a “graded death benefit” and should raise no flags, as it is a common practice even for standard life insurance.
It is always great news to go from “I can’t get this at all” to “Which of these should I pick?”. People living with HIV/AIDS can get burial insurance regardless of their medical records. Both guaranteed issue life insurance and a funeral trust will cover the expenses, and in both cases starting early with the premium will get you the most convenient rates and open the most doors.
No option is in itself better than the other, so you can decide which one you prefer and get professional advice on how to get started. Here are Burial Insurance Pro’s, we’ll try our best to make recommendations, and help you make an informed decision. We’ll provide you quotes for guaranteed issue burial insurance, and try to make the application process as simple as possible.
Simply call us at 844-334-6143 and have a quick 5-minute phone call for us. Or contact us online, and have an agent communicate with you thru
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