Do you need help with finding best life insurance after a stroke or mini-stroke?
Whether you want term life insurance or permanent life insurance coverage to protect your loved ones, your business or just to help pay final expenses...
If you’ve had a stroke or a mini-stroke and need life insurance, below is information that will help you better understand the issues for life insurance underwriting purposes, what it may cost and how to get the absolute best offer on your life insurance!!
While you can qualify for life insurance after a stroke or mini-stroke, the cost or rate class can vary greatly depending on a lot of factors.
Getting Life Insurance After A Mini-Stroke
Let’s start with the min-stroke as this is the easier of the two that could qualify for better life insurance premiums.
A mini stroke, also called a TIA or Transient Ischemic Attack, is a warning sign of stroke.
According to the American Stroke Association, a TIA happens before about 15% of all strokes.
More than 30% of people that have a TIA will have a more severe stroke within 1 year.
Postponed For 3 Months After Mini Stroke
You’ll usually be postponed from qualifying for life insurance until at least 3 months after the incident.
If the mini-stroke was caused by a migraine or oral contraceptive (and no longer on oral contraceptive), without any ongoing neurological deficit, then Regular or Standard rates are possible.
Your age at the time you had the mini stroke matters and so does the amount of time that’s passed since you’ve had the incident, so the older you are and the longer it’s been, the better!
If the cause of your mini-stroke tia is unknown, without a CT scan, MRI, carotid ultrasound, then you will likely be charged substandard rates, especially in the first 3 years following the incident.
Cost of Life Insurance After a Mini-Stroke
Keep in mind that exceptions are always possible, and we have negotiated and gotten better offers than quotes below...but preferred plus and preferred rates, and sometimes not even the standard health class will be offered in the early years after the TIA.
Within the first 3 to 5 years after a mini-stroke, you may be table rated for life insurance.
If you’re under the age of 40, you may only qualify for a table 4 to 6 rate or higher.
For ages 40- 69, you may qualify for a table 2 or 3 rate.
At age 70+, you’ll likely qualify for Regular/Standard rates or possibly better.
The longer it’s been since you had the TIA, and the better your overall health otherwise, the better the rate for which you may qualify.
Life Insurance Quotes After a Mini Stroke
Below are estimated monthly range of cost rates by age for $250,000 of 10 year term that you could expect to pay after a TIA depending on the length of time since incident:
AGE | 1- 2 Yrs | 2+ Yrs | Header | Header |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Male 40 | $27- $31 | $19- $27 | Cell | Cell |
Male 50 | $55- $63 | $46- $55 | Cell | Cell |
Male 60 | $135- $156 | $111- $135 | Cell | Cell |
Male 70 | $314- $393 | $264- $314 | |
AGE | 1- 2 Yrs | 2+ Yrs | Header | Header |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Female 40 | $23- $25 | $18- $23 | Cell | Cell |
Female 50 | $44- $51 | $36- $44 | Cell | Cell |
Female 60 | $98- $114 | $65- $98 | Cell | Cell |
Female 70 | $193- $276 | $175- $193 | |
Getting Life Insurance After A Stroke
A stroke or cerebrovascular accident is obstruction of blood flow to the brain causing permanent damage.
Your stroke could be either an ischemic stroke (caused by a blockage in blood vessel) or a hemorrhagic stroke (caused by a blood vessel that ruptured). The stroke awareness foundation does a great job of explaining both types.
About 25% to 35% of people that have had a stroke cva will have a second stroke in their lifetime.
Within five years of a stroke, 24% of women and 42% of men will experience a recurrent stroke. Recurrent strokes have a higher rate of death and disability.
Stroke Is Leading Cause of Death and Disability
According to the World Health Organization, strokes are the second leading cause of death in the world and the leading cause of disability in adults.
There are also a high percentage of stroke victims that will die prematurely from other vascular or cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and even a second stroke..
Think of the whole vascular system as plumbing for the body. If you have a blood vessel that gets blockage in your brain and causes a stroke or mini stroke, it is also possible that blockages could be forming in other areas, like in the vessels that supply blood to your heart or lungs.
While there are people that have no significant medical history and then have a stroke, risk factors like smoking tobacco products, poor diet, lack of exercise, obesity and even family history do seem to play a BIG part in the likelihood of having a stroke or TIA.
Cost of Life After A Stroke
Exceptions are always possible on full blown stroke cases, and we have used our system and gotten better offers than below...it just takes a little work on our part.
Almost every insurance company will postpone you until a full 6 months has passed since your stroke.
And within the first 3 years after a stroke, you will be “rated” and possibly charged a “flat extra” for life insurance.
If you’re under the age of 40, you may only qualify for a table 6 to 8 rate with possible $2.50 per thousand extra premium.
For ages 40- 69, you may qualify for a table 3 to 5 rate with possible $2.50 flat extra in first 3 years.
At age 70+, you’ll likely qualify for a Table 2 or 3 rate, also with possible $2.50 or higher flat extra in first 3 years.
The longer it’s been since the time of the stroke, and the better your overall health is otherwise, the better the health rating for which you may qualify.
Life Insurance Quotes After A Stroke
Below are monthly range of cost rates for $250,000 of 10 year term that you could expect to pay after a stroke occurs depending on the length of time since and the severity of the stroke:
AGE | 6 Mo- 3 Yrs | 3+ Yrs | Header | Header |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Male 40 | $50- $104 | $31- $39 | Cell | Cell |
Male 50 | $79- $187 | $63- $79 | Cell | Cell |
Male 60 | $199- $307 | $156- $199 | Cell | Cell |
Male 70 | $458- $566 | $393- $458 | |
AGE | 6 Mo- 3 Yrs | 3+ Yrs | Header | Header |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Female 40 | $31- $139 | $25- $31 | Cell | Cell |
Female 50 | $64- $172 | $51- $64 | Cell | Cell |
Female 60 | $145- $253 | $114- $145 | Cell | Cell |
Female 70 | $321- $429 | $276- $321 | |
Health Questions for Stroke And Mini Stroke Victims
If you’ve had a stroke or a mini stroke and need life insurance, assuming no ongoing symptoms, you have not had multiple strokes and you have no other high risk life insurance issues, the following are health questions we’d need answered to determine the best insurance carriers and what it could cost you to buy life insurance:
- Did you have a stroke or a TIA?
- What was the date of your stroke or TIA?
- What prescription medications do you take?
- Was your type of stroke ischemic or hemorrhagic?
- Do you have any neurological residual effects from the stroke? (i.e. problems with thinking/reasoning, memory loss, speech impairment, vision problems, depth perception, bowel or bladder control)
- Do you have any debilitation caused by the stroke? (paralysis, trouble walking, severe headaches, etc)
- Are you able to care for yourself without assistance? (i.e. bathing, dressing, eating, going up and down stairs, etc)
- Are you disabled and collecting disability benefits?
- Have you ever used tobacco? what type and date of last use?
- Do you have ANY other health issues?
- What is your height and weight?
Multiple Issues Can Increase Your Rate
If you’ve had a stroke/TIA and you have other issues like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc., we’ll need to get more details on all of your health conditions to be able to shop your case properly and to choose the best life insurance carriers for you.
Having a stroke and additional medical issues can cause traditional life insurance companies to table rate you higher than they would if you only had a stroke or mini stroke.
Some carriers will also charge an extra premium for up to three or four years from the date of recovery in addition to the “rating.”
The “extra premium” can vary greatly from company to company, and it’s possible that an insurance company may not charge an extra premium if you have no residual effects from the stroke and your health is good otherwise.
The life insurance offers after a TIA will usually be a lot better than if you’ve had a full blown stroke.
How To Get Best Offer After Stroke or Mini Stroke
First thing you'll need to do is find a good independent agent or broker that can offer you lots of different insurance companies.
Make sure the agent gets preliminary quotes from multiple carriers.
Since getting quotes without having actual medical records will result in very "rough" estimates at best, make sure your agent will have access to shop your actual medical records later if the first approval is not as good as expected.
We like to get multiple approvals from more than one company right off the bat, as the offers can vary greatly from company to company...
Plus this gives us more negotiating room...and yes, negotiation is always possible.
Just keep in mind, if you've had paralysis or other more significant issues or debilitation from your stroke or mini stroke, then negotiation becomes tougher.
But even on really tough cases, we do still get surprised when one company makes significantly better offer than the other "aggressive" companies.
Guaranteed Issue Type Of Life Insurance
As a last resort if your history of stroke is bad enough and you can’t find any life insurance agents to get you a term life, universal life or other type of life insurance for stroke victims...then guaranteed issue life insurance is an option.
Guaranteed issue life (GI) coverage is available to everyone that can sign an insurance application. No medical exam and no health questions are required to qualify.
GI insurance policies are only designed to be final expense life insurance as they’re usually only offered at small amounts, like $25,000.
GI is not the ideal life insurance for stroke victims as it is fairly expensive and always has a waiting period of 2 or 3 years before full death benefit amount would be paid to beneficiary of policy if death was caused by a stroke or any other disease or illness.
Bottom Line- Getting Insurance After Stroke or Mini Stroke
We’ve shopped a lot of stroke and TIA cases, and we’ve learned what it takes to get the best offer and that the life insurance quote that any insurance agent provides you, before you formally apply, means almost nothing.
The insurance exam and your actual medical records are required to get any real offer, so be careful when relying on quotes only.
Whether you want term insurance, whole life or universal life insurance doesn’t really matter.
We’d inquire with ALL of the competitive carriers including the popular one’s like Banner Life, American General, American National, Lincoln National, Principal Life, Pacific Life, Protective Life, Prudential....
And even the not as well known or niche companies like AXA Equitable, Cincinnati Life, Illinois Mutual, North American Company, Penn Mutual, Thrivent Financial.
Get Real Offers And Not Just Estimates
We’d get you multiple real offers and not just estimates or insurance quotes, then you could decide to accept or not after you apply for life insurance and can review the actual insurance policies.
Our multiple life Insurance application process is the easiest in the industry.
You’d get multiple real offers and then decide on plan and amount of insurance that you want from the best insurance company for you.
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