Life Insurance

[Ben Beckerich]

I swear I've seen threads on this topic before, but not finding any via the board search feature now..

 

Who you using for life insurance, how you got it set up (term, annuity, etc), and how was it affected by your hobbies if at all?

 

I climb and race bikes and have a couple other factors that have surely contributed to nobody ever calling me back. I shit you not.. I've had like 5 agents just completely fail to get back to me. I've heard tale of climbers/racers/sky divers/suicidal maniacs getting policies without even really being asked a lot of questions.... but everyone I've talked to has asked a LOT of questions, and not liked the answers. Thus... I've never even gotten a quote, let alone an outrageous one.

 

So hook a bruh up. I got 6 kids and pretty much nothing to leave 'em.

[genepires]

I thought AAC had some kind,of,insurance but it may be just rescue insurance. Maybe they have a connection for other insurance that deals with climbers?

[ScaredSilly]

I have several policies with State Farm. They asked about my climbing. Kept the rate but yanked the double indemnity clause. About 10-15 year later they put it back in. I have done both whole and universal.

 

If you are having problems and have a professional society (such as engineering), join as they often have group term plans.

[JayB]

Hey Ben:

 

Speaking of kids - I'd type out a longer message but I've got two little ones I have to tend to at the moment - but I can say that we went through the same thing getting life insurance for my wife and ultimately had to seek out a high-risk broker.

 

The short story is that if you answer yes to a couple of key questions - you get your life insurance application and basically get put on a "do not insure" list. The guy we went with has contacts at insurers that he knows will write high-risk policies, lets them "informally" look over your application, and only "formally" submits your application when they've given the green light. Somehow this seems to work.

 

The application we had to fill out was super-detailed, and seemed like it was put together by someone who understood climbing. The downside is it's wicked expensive - we're paying ~3K a year for a 15 year $ 1 million dollar term-life policy. Anyhow - hope this helps - and isn't too depressing.

 

Here's a link to the guy we used:

 

http://www.stevenkobrin.com/

[Ben Beckerich]

I thought AAC had some kind,of,insurance but it may be just rescue insurance. Maybe they have a connection for other insurance that deals with climbers?

 

Looks like AAC endorses Nicholas Hill Group for "climber-friendly" life insurance.. I went ahead and put in a quote request. I guess odds are good I'll at least get a call back from those guys...

 

If not, I'll try steven kobrin

Edited March 19, 2017 by Ben Beckerich

[JayB]

Cool - hopefully you get at least a couple of quotes and are in a position to choose from competing offers.

 

Let us know how it goes - it'll surely be useful info for someone else. If you wind up getting terms that are significantly better than we've got at the moment, I'll follow your lead and give the NHG a call myself.

[G-spotter]

Can you get life insurance from your death panel?

[Bronco]

Regarding the Term vs. Whole, I prefer to look at life insurance as having a completely separate purpose than my investments. You can get a lot more coverage for less premium with a Term policy.

 

We recently replaced our old policies and they were more concerned with my cholesterol and BMI than my climbing and bc skiing. I ended up paying about $1,100 annually for $500k of coverage, wife was $850ish for the same coverage.

[stevetimetravlr]

Put the money in a trust account for your kids, and buy a set of Totem cams, best life insurance policy ever.

[Ben Beckerich]

We recently replaced our old policies and they were more concerned with my cholesterol and BMI than my climbing and bc skiing. I ended up paying about $1,100 annually for $500k of coverage, wife was $850ish for the same coverage.

 

Holy shit, dude... who'd you go through?

 

The joint AAC endorses quoted me $4k for $1m

[Bronco]

 

http://www.pacificinsurancegroup.com

 

I believe I have a much higher chance of dying of disease or day to day life so when they asked if I participate in any "extreme activities" I said no, just some off trail backpacking/scrambling and skiing. They did not pursue the question further. Frankly, I don't think my occasional mid-fifth class climbing qualifies as "extreme" and I'm a lot more likely to be killed in a car wreck so that's the important coverage. In the unlikely situation where I'm actually killed in a catastrophic climbing accident, there may be a dispute with the insurance provider. That being said, our kid is out of the house and my wife makes a decent income which factored into the decision.

[Choada_Boy]

It helps to get burnt right before the piss test. That way they have a solid baseline.

[schroden]

Hey

 

When I converted my universal life (think whole life merged with investment options, paid monthly like term) to whole life paid up policy, I was asked if I did any mountain climbing in the past year. Well, sadly, it had been about 56 weeks since my last climb, so I could honestly say no. Would have been a different story if I lived closer to the mountains!

[LittleJohn]

Sorry for being so late to this. I went through this a year or two ago, ended up with Banner Life Insurance. They had no penalty for climbing activity. They did request somewhat detailed history of previous climbing experience, and anticipated future climbs. Did want to know what type of climbing you were involved in- rock vrs glacier, etc. They took fairly detailed history as I recall.

I contacted 5 or more companies, everyone else had riders for climbing that were at least 50% or more of the original premium. Often the rider was more than the premium itself. Banner ended up with very competitive rate, no rider and no exclusions on the policy for any type of climbing activity.

This was for a 15 year term policy at $500,000 value.

 

[markwebster]

I've never had life insurance, I think it's a rip off. Sink that money into savings. I always figured my wife could remarry. Plus my parents and my sister were around to help. My kids are grown and gone now, they don't have it either.

 

We quit mountain climbing before kids, which seemed to be the most risky sport. Cragging has been good to us. A diamond ring was the old form of life insurance, but we bought a backpacking tent instead.

 

Most jobs give you a little bit anyway.