Can't Get Life Insurance Because I've Been Too Healthy

My wife and I had a child a little over a year ago, so we decided to finally break down and buy some life insurance. Despite a overwhelming history of hospital visits, surgeries and illnesses (some chronic), my wife was approved with no problems.

Today, I get a letter telling me that they won't approve me. Why? Because I don't have any recent medical records. I've not been sick enough to need to go to the doctor since 1990 (when I had an appendectomy), so I haven't been. And because of apparently being too healthy for the last nearly 20 years, I don't qualify for life insurance from this particular company (Prudential).

 

Sure I can. Healthy in the sense of not having any active issues that would've sent me to a specialist that could've found anything that I don't otherwise know about.

Going to the doctor when I have a stuffy nose so he can tell me I have a cold or anything like that isn't going to give me any more information on my overall health or let me know if there is something lurking beneath the surface.

They're not asking for a physical (otherwise I could just go get one), they're asking for a pattern of doctor visits, even if those visits were just overreacting to a simple virus that a doctor can't do anything about anyway and which wouldn't give them any more accurate a picture of my overall health.

 

I've had my cholesterol checked, but not by a doctor or at a doctor's office.

And I routinely check my own blood pressure. I don't need a doctor for that.

If I had a symptom that was worth checking out, I would go (after consulting with one of the several physicians or nurses in my own family).

 

Nope.

 

There are cholesteral screenings at health fairs and clinics that I have taken part in. When I receive the results, I discuss them with the physician who happens to have been 50% responsible for my birth. Sadly, this does not create any medical records that are acceptable to this particular insurance agency in this situation.

A person can check his own blood pressure when trained to and be told what to look for by a medical professional. Having a nurse do it doesn't make the results any more accurate (as a matter of fact, being able to routinely monitor one's own blood pressure can offer the possibility of finding problems sooner, rather than relying the once-a-year screening at a doctor's office).

And though there are plenty of illnesses that don't show any signs of symptoms until they are very far along, doctors I've spoken to when considering going to the doctor don't routinely check for many of them in men of my age without any genetic or other reason to do so (symptoms, the patient just asks, etc).

 

It was term life.

Whatever the reason, I don't understand why a physical wouldn't work for them now.