guy incognito
Well-Known Member
So it's about that time for me to get life insurance. I am married and we are trying to have a baby. I don't want to leave my wife or children with no place to live and lots of bills to pay, so I need a life insurance policy.
Does anyone have any insight or wisdom they can impart on me? How did you get life insurance? What company did you go through? How much do you pay, and what are the details of your policy (term life, when you got it, cost, how did you address the pot smoking)? Tell me your stories.
One of the issues I have is that I have told all my doctors that I smoke marijuana. Everyone has always advised me to be 100% honest with my doctor, because everything you tell your dr is confidential and will be in my best interest. However now I am finding out it is only confidential so long as you don't apply for life insurance. Part of the application process is waiving your right to confidentiality with medical records - the insurance company wants access to your medical records, and if you told your dr you smoke pot it may be listed there in black and white. Totally confidential and in my best interest my ass. I should have never mentioned it to any of my doctors as it was completely unrelated to anything I was going in for, the only reason I told them was that I was lulled into a false sense of security that it was confidential and will in no way ever affect me in the future and could only help me by being honest.
If I lie and say I never smoked and they discover that I did when they check my records I will get either flat out denied or my rates will be bumped up to tobacco smokers rates. What is worse is that this will be reported to the MIB group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIB_Group,_Inc.) which is like a credit rating database except it contains your medical information for insurance purposes. So if I get busted lying to one life insurance company, it goes into that database, and all other life insurance companies will know about it. So what I tell one life insurance company is not confidential. Not even close to confidential. I would essentially be black listed and they ALL will deny me or charge me smoking rates for a failed drug test, or them discovering I lied on my application.
If I tell the truth and say I have done illicit drugs in the past (ie smoking marijuana) then I will also be flat out denied or my rates will be bumped to tobacco smoker rates. This is also reported to the MIB group.
If I lie and they don't catch it, but I die within the first 2 years of the policy, then they will launch an investigation, and will almost certainly turn up that I am a marijuana smoker and have gone to a dr specifically to get my medical card in my state.
This all seems like a bunch of bullshit. I had no idea the true lack of privacy you have to subject yourself to in order to obtain life insurance. I must have read 100 different web pages before I encountered one that mentioned the MIB group. They seem to be somewhat secretive of it and the general population seems to have no idea about it. At least I didn't, and neither did anyone I talked to about the matter (including several people working in the insurance industry[to be fair they don't work with life insurance though]).
If I lie and they don't catch it, and I live past the 2 year contestability period I am home free. As far as I know they can't deny my claim at that point even if they want to. Even if I blatantly committed fraud on my application, and used a doppelganger to take my blood test and urine test so my HIV, irregular glucose levels, and copious amount of drug metabolites don't show up, once I am past that 2 year period the policy is set in stone. At least that is my understanding of how the contestability period works.
At this point I have been not smoking for approximately a week. I am such a heavy user though that I will be paranoid to take my piss test at any point. Even after 30 days, I have a low chance of failing the drug test for THC, but if I do the consequences are drastic. I will get denied, or get significantly higher rates (like 4X), and also have it reported to the MIB so all other insurance companies will know about it.
As of now I am leaning toward finding a company that is lenient toward pot smoking and will give a smoker a non-smoker rate as long as they smoke infrequently (like less than 2x a mo) and can piss clean. Then I will substitute my friend's clean piss as my own for good measure. Then I am covered if they discover I smoked in the past (I will not have lied about it except for the frequency - which how can they possibly prove I lied about that?).
Does anyone have any insight or wisdom they can impart on me? How did you get life insurance? What company did you go through? How much do you pay, and what are the details of your policy (term life, when you got it, cost, how did you address the pot smoking)? Tell me your stories.
One of the issues I have is that I have told all my doctors that I smoke marijuana. Everyone has always advised me to be 100% honest with my doctor, because everything you tell your dr is confidential and will be in my best interest. However now I am finding out it is only confidential so long as you don't apply for life insurance. Part of the application process is waiving your right to confidentiality with medical records - the insurance company wants access to your medical records, and if you told your dr you smoke pot it may be listed there in black and white. Totally confidential and in my best interest my ass. I should have never mentioned it to any of my doctors as it was completely unrelated to anything I was going in for, the only reason I told them was that I was lulled into a false sense of security that it was confidential and will in no way ever affect me in the future and could only help me by being honest.
If I lie and say I never smoked and they discover that I did when they check my records I will get either flat out denied or my rates will be bumped up to tobacco smokers rates. What is worse is that this will be reported to the MIB group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIB_Group,_Inc.) which is like a credit rating database except it contains your medical information for insurance purposes. So if I get busted lying to one life insurance company, it goes into that database, and all other life insurance companies will know about it. So what I tell one life insurance company is not confidential. Not even close to confidential. I would essentially be black listed and they ALL will deny me or charge me smoking rates for a failed drug test, or them discovering I lied on my application.
If I tell the truth and say I have done illicit drugs in the past (ie smoking marijuana) then I will also be flat out denied or my rates will be bumped to tobacco smoker rates. This is also reported to the MIB group.
If I lie and they don't catch it, but I die within the first 2 years of the policy, then they will launch an investigation, and will almost certainly turn up that I am a marijuana smoker and have gone to a dr specifically to get my medical card in my state.
This all seems like a bunch of bullshit. I had no idea the true lack of privacy you have to subject yourself to in order to obtain life insurance. I must have read 100 different web pages before I encountered one that mentioned the MIB group. They seem to be somewhat secretive of it and the general population seems to have no idea about it. At least I didn't, and neither did anyone I talked to about the matter (including several people working in the insurance industry[to be fair they don't work with life insurance though]).
If I lie and they don't catch it, and I live past the 2 year contestability period I am home free. As far as I know they can't deny my claim at that point even if they want to. Even if I blatantly committed fraud on my application, and used a doppelganger to take my blood test and urine test so my HIV, irregular glucose levels, and copious amount of drug metabolites don't show up, once I am past that 2 year period the policy is set in stone. At least that is my understanding of how the contestability period works.
At this point I have been not smoking for approximately a week. I am such a heavy user though that I will be paranoid to take my piss test at any point. Even after 30 days, I have a low chance of failing the drug test for THC, but if I do the consequences are drastic. I will get denied, or get significantly higher rates (like 4X), and also have it reported to the MIB so all other insurance companies will know about it.
As of now I am leaning toward finding a company that is lenient toward pot smoking and will give a smoker a non-smoker rate as long as they smoke infrequently (like less than 2x a mo) and can piss clean. Then I will substitute my friend's clean piss as my own for good measure. Then I am covered if they discover I smoked in the past (I will not have lied about it except for the frequency - which how can they possibly prove I lied about that?).
