Kathryn Knowles  00:09

Hi everybody. We are on season 10, Episode Five, and Alan is back with me to give more underwriting insights. Hi Alan. Hi everyone. So today, everybody, we are going to be talking about how a higher BMI can influence your insurance options. This is the practical protection podcast.

 

Kathryn Knowles  00:38

So Alan, how you have things been since you were last, last on the podcast.

 

Alan Knowles  00:42

Good. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. It’s it’s all going alright. I’ve just got back from London, as you well know, just been talking about income protection on a panel, which was very interesting. And is it right? And should I put it in a spotlight? Is it sustainable to keep seeing the growth and everything that we are? So that was really interesting.

 

Kathryn Knowles  00:58

Good. Amy, because you’ve had a good time. You’ve been on doing that. I keep thinking about the fact that fact, though, that you’ll have asked a bazillion questions, and probably 10 times more than anybody else you have

 

Alan Knowles  01:08

a question around you. So annoying. Yeah, I ask everything of everyone,

 

Kathryn Knowles  01:11

and if anybody wants to know some really weird and unusual facts about you, they could always ask you what you have for your dinners and both nights, because I would say so anybody who knows me at all, I’m very, very picky eater for a number of different reasons. And so we, if we go out for food, it’s usually quite a specific kind of place. And you know where we know, like, the menu is going to be nice and things like that, and quite normal. And you love it when you go away without me. Don’t you get to go everywhere that’s really unusual. You don’t need to tell people.

 

Alan Knowles  01:40

I wasn’t going to what I’ll say is that I was near Chinatown, and I ate both nights in Chinatown and tried food that I was not typically Western European food,

 

Kathryn Knowles  01:51

yeah, and the kind of stuff where I’ve gone, yeah, I feel like that sound could be like, like a little snippet that I could put on. Maybe I just need to have that as, like, a beeper when I go around near you, when you’re eating. Okay, right, everybody. So we’re gonna chat about BMI. And I’m actually really amazed that I have spoken about BMI before, in high BMI and low BMI, but I’ve not actually done an episode on high BMI before, which really, really surprised me when I was looking back. So I was looking at like, What haven’t we covered? We need to do any updates on anything, which we sometimes do. And it really threw me, because I thought, well, clearly, come on, I must have done a high BMI episode and I haven’t, which really, I say, shocks me, because I think it is one of the most common things that an advisor will come across. And maybe part of it’s because there are the BMI tables that you can see. So with Most insurers, if you’re wanting guidance as to what the outcomes will be if you do a search for that name of the insurer that you’re looking at and putting BMI guide, you often find like a PDF or something that will give you an indication as to how they might be looking at a person’s BMI. But let’s just get back to the basics of BMI. So BMI is used, especially by insurers and obviously the medical profession, as well as a simple and easy way to consider someone’s overall health. It is definitely not the complete and utter indicator of a person’s health, but it is seen as quite quick. It’s it’s just two data points that gives then another one that still like gives up. Can night, the insurers can go back, you know, the actors can go back statistically and say, Well, this is happening, and this is happening, and this is likely to happen with this BMI, but it’s very old and outdated. So I’m going to give a little bit of history on the BMI. Don’t worry. I’m not going to go to for too long on it. But BMI, it was all kind of, it wasn’t sort of termed as BMI. So much later, it was established by a Belgian mathematician, so it wasn’t established by a health professional or a doctor. It was based upon this mathematician statistics of what a normal man was in 1832 so this is definitely going to get me on a bit of a high horse here. Um, so luckily, it’s just Alan who’s near me, who’s going to get a bit of side eye for me, bless him, for the fact of male failings in the background. But so I said this Belgian mathematician based it upon a normal white and I’m saying normal in like, I’m doing, like the little bunny ear quotation, quote, things. So a white European man in 1832 so it didn’t take into account women. It didn’t take into account different ethnicities. So very, very limited in terms of where it should be. You know who it applies to, but it is used the world over and still used in the 1950s and the word tables developed of normal weights for people. So this came about because there was an insurer that noticed that they were receiving higher claims for people with a higher weight. So it did start to be sort of like something that they were able to quickly, kind of get information on quickly, do you know, statistics on based upon the fact, obviously, we didn’t have huge computers then and everything at that time. And give them a general idea of, you know, are we pricing things right for people with. In maybe this group or that group, because of the fact of there can be higher claims. And they were seeing that it was in 1972 that we had the physiologist Ansel keys, and he developed the term BMI. And as we’re going to say, BMI is definitely not an be all and end all. So generally, BMI is between 2125 just in general. I’m not saying like for every single type of thing, but that’s sort of like a good window to say. That’s where people would see a potential normal range and and my BMI is usually between 21 and 22 and it has been much higher than that when I was younger and I wasn’t particularly well. It’s been much lower than that as well. But so in terms of the insurance systems might be Amy is absolutely fine. But then if you were to say, look at my body fats, and I think lots of people are now much more aware of things like body fats and things like that, and it’s essentially how much fat you’re carrying in the body in different areas around the organs, and that’s probably an even better indication of someone’s overall health, I have quite a high body fat, so I’ve got a really low being at my high but I’ve got a high body fat, and obviously I carry that pretty much my hips and thighs, which is very typical of me, my genetics, my ethnicity, but it doesn’t take into account that muscle also weighs more than fat. So you can find that you might have clients who may be quite active exercise quite a bit. They might be doing a bit of weight training, and their BMI starts to go up. And it’s not in a sense, and it’s not in a bad sense that their BMI is higher. It is just part and parcel of their body, the exercise regimes. And actually, the insurers will probably look at that person and and and typically think, you know, that’s actually really, really good, but their BMI could potentially alter the options, so sometimes we might need to have a chat with insurers and explain the circumstances. But then I remember I did a podcast recently. Well, I said recently was probably about over a year ago now, and with Doctor Debbie Smith, and we did it about IP claim statistics. It was season eight. Episode Eight. I remember chatting with her at one point. So there’s lots of discussions about how having a higher BMI actually seems to be in direct correlation to a lot of long term IP claims, even if that isn’t the reason that the person has claimed, when they’ve looked into the reason that they’ve claimed, and then other parts of the person’s health, and there tends to have been a higher BMI there, and but, and I was speaking with everyone, started saying, Well, you know, rugby players, well, they’re more muscle than fat a lot of the time, but it’s a case of, well, that’s true. But then, and Alan, you’re very fitness, so you’ll be able to correct me if this is wrong. And also, I’ve waited for quite a bit, so probably much longer than I intended. So people broke out of my voice, but it’s quite true. I think that if you were, say, somebody had quite a significant muscle mass, that if you stopped exercising, that doesn’t just disappear, and it would, it would convert more into, sort of, obviously not as strong muscle, Polly, some fat, so you wouldn’t your BMI, then would probably be more on that kind of it’s it would be more body fat rather than the muscle.

 

Alan Knowles  07:59

Yeah. And unless they kept training to the level that they were, or unless they lost weight. But I think one of the dangers is that actually, and I know this for myself, and when I’ve exercised a lot in the past, and when I was doing triathlons and things like that, when you stop training for those, you still kind of eat as if you are training for those, yeah, because you’re so used to it to become normal. And actually very easy. It becomes very easy then to add that fat back on. So there are risks like that. Yeah, and

 

Kathryn Knowles  08:24

that’s part of one of the reasons that these shows are still even though we can say to them, Well, look, yes, this person’s got high BMI, but can you take into account that actually they’re really fit. They’re in the gym five times a week. They’re doing this, doing that, their body fats like this. I say 8% I say something like really, really low. While it can still be quite cautious, because you know that might not be sustainable for a long time, and it might change, like you say, going to the body, might start losing some of that muscle. It might start going into Tom, the fats, or just them, as you say, continue to eat more but high meat BMI, it is linked to things like diabetes, cancer, heart, sex, stroke, metabolic syndrome and many, many other things, which again, is why we can sometimes see in show as being a bit more cautious as BMI tends to increase. So I’m going to shut up now and that you actually do what you’re here for, Alan, and start giving people the actual information they want to have. So Alan, obviously, BMI plays a really big factor in arranging life insurance, Krystal income protection in the UK, with your mainstream advisors, and advisors with your mainstream insurers, and you know the people where we are going to be getting medically underwritten cover. So what are the first things that come to mind, if you’re speaking to a client and their BMI is over, say, what would be considered the typically normal ranges?

 

Alan Knowles  09:40

Okay, yeah. And there’s probably two sort of prongs to this, in some ways, because we’re very much telephone based, which is a real advantage, in some ways, because it gives us a barrier we, you know, it’s obviously, it’s all quite anonymous when you’re over the telephone, even if you’re over zoom, for example. And the advantage of that is you can be quite. I just open in the discussion around things like BMI, it’s a little bit easier, and it probably a little bit easier to get good disclosure. The downside is that we can’t see the person that we’re talking to. So obviously, the advantage of somebody who would be face to face is you can see that person, you will probably know, especially if the BMI is very high, that actually we are going to, you know, potentially have a couple of issues here, or something that you need to know a little bit bit more about. The downside of face to face is some people might not want to give that disclosure quite as much. They might be a little bit more reserved, a little bit more nervous. So

 

Kathryn Knowles  10:29

I would say it could be quite hard as well. I imagine if you know, and it sounds terrible saying it like this, but if you did have somebody in front of you who is either very, very slim, you know, maybe you know to the point that they seem very, very thin, or they are larger, and you can see that they are larger, but then they maybe say something. And you’re looking then at your systems, and it’s saying that their BMI is coming out at like, 2324 but it’s maybe quite obvious visually that their BMI would be higher than that. That’s also quite a tricky thing. And that’s certainly nothing, I think, for to do necessarily in this podcast. You would need, probably, very specific training to know what to do with that, because you wouldn’t be able to seem shocked. You wouldn’t be able to, like, really challenge this, you know, because you’d have to be so careful not to offend somebody, because you might also be wrong. You might think, Oh, that’d be my spouse. It might be like, No, it’s really not. And that’s another dynamic, yeah,

 

Alan Knowles  11:22

obviously, ultimately, you need to impress at the very start of any call like this, look, be truthful and honest with all of your answers. And failure to make material disclosures can mean the policies don’t pay out all that type of thing. So you’re right. You can’t just go, Oh, are you sure that’s not your BMI, you know, you look a bit heavier than that. It would be incredibly insensitive to do something like that. But there’s other ways that you could do it. You could, for example, you know, send copies after of the answers. You could send an email or a form, or you could even say to them, Well, what we need to do is we need to make sure these figures are absolutely accurate. Would you mind once I’ve gone, oh, after this call, jumping on the scales both of you and then emailing me the most up to date figures. So there’s ways and means of kind of doing that, but actually, BMI is probably up there with alcohol and drugs, one of the most mis disclosed or non disclosed. Yes, non disclosure, but you can certainly mis disclose it or under disclose it, and yet, obviously it got such a high impact on claims as well. So kind of what goes through my head. The first thing is, what is the client’s BMI? Now, we’re very fortunate that our system, when we tap in the height and weight into our fact fight, it tells us their BMI. A lot of systems won’t do that, but obviously you can get a little bit of a feel for it still. So the first thing I’m going to be thinking is, what kind of an impact is this likely to have? Are we talking just alerting or are we actually talking potentially declines here, and is this going to end up more specialist? So that’s probably kind of where my head goes first of all. But then the other part is, and you can’t just directly lead on from this with it, but you might be thinking, well, actually, we’ve got a higher BMI here. Have we got any medical conditions that might be associated with it. So you’ve got the BMI, it’s all written down. Okay, really helpful. Thank you very much for providing that information. Can I ask? Are there any medical conditions that either of you have got? Obviously address it to both people. If you’re speaking to more than one. Is there anything you take any medication for? At the moment, these sorts of things don’t reference it directly to the BMI. Make it much more generic. But actually, then it might be that they just have a high BMI. I mean, we have some people with BMI of 50 who don’t have any disclosable conditions, but it might be that they say, yes, do you know what? I’m diabetic or yes, I’ve had this in the past, one that we’re seeing a lot of at the moment. And sorry, if you were going to bring this up at

 

Kathryn Knowles  13:38

all, I wasn’t, but it’s a good one to bring up. I know where you’re going you know where I’m going,

 

Alan Knowles  13:41

weight loss injections. This has been a huge, huge spike of, forgive the pun, in kind of disclosures, with people taking things like azempic and munjara. Thank you very much. And obviously the long term effects of these weight loss. Injections are not really known. Now, I guess on one hand, you could say, If your BMI is 40 or 50, the risk may very well be worth it, and probably why. You know the NHS are now prescribing these medications, but from an insurance company’s perspective, the long term outcome is unknown, so that, in itself, it’s not causing declines, necessarily, but it’s an another interesting area that is presenting challenges for underwriting,

 

Kathryn Knowles  14:27

absolutely, and I was going to say on with those just some extra things to sort of like consider, as well, with the way it lost drugs. Probably the fact that, you know, in terms of it has been absolutely phenomenal for a lot of people. But there are some things now where you know, because they’ve been around for a while, we’re starting to see the reports now of people who’ve maybe taken these things have lost a lot of weight in their first year, because you can only take them for so long, and then once, actually they stopped taking them, the weight starts to come back on. So it’s still very much an unknown. I mean, like you were saying, uh, undoubtedly, if you’ve got an incredibly high BMI, then taking some. Something like this, weight loss drug, drugs would probably really be a positive because of the fact of, you know, there are, like we were saying, the cancers, are heart attacks, the strokes, you know, it really does increase the risk of these situations and the long term income protection claims. So it’s got to be better for the body to not be having as much weight and by taking those, but then we don’t, but then we don’t know the effects of these actually, and that’s what these shows struggle with. They have decades worth of data. That’s the thing. You know, when it was like when COVID happened, you know, when they’ve when we talk about heart attacks, they’ve got, I think probably now, at least 100 years of really solid, strong data to go right at this age, if you have a heart attack, this is how long you end. And obviously that is still evolving constantly with the medical advances, but there’s just no background knowledge to these at the moment, to give that really clear data. So it is something that insurers be looking at. I think as well, I have to say I would think that insurers would probably look at it a bit closer. If somebody, if they did, possibly, possibly, with some insurance, needs to be a little bit of a story given us to sort of like, well, it was started at this point. The BMI was this. And because they will often ask, have you had significant weight loss in the X amount of time? Which, you know, these weight loss drugs do cause that. So they’d want to know, sort of like, how that BMI stepping downwards, and I think you know, as well as, sort of like seeing that, and obviously for them to that be an explanation, it’s would obviously be very, very beneficial. But then we’ve also got, maybe, because I know you said about being prescribed on the NHS, but obviously people are being able to buy these privately, and that’s not liked, that’s frowned upon. Yeah, I was going to say, because you may be your BMI might not be at a level, in a sense, where those drugs would be something the NHS say, Yes, we should bring this in now. And so it could be that some people are actually going the other way and becoming too

 

Alan Knowles  16:50

Do you know what the level is? Do you know what the BMI level is for being prescribed it? Or last time, 2727 which means, well, until recently, I’ve just lost a little bit of weight recently, but like a month or so ago, I would have been in a knowledgeable range for it as well, right? Which is really interesting when you look at the kind of terms considered, because someone with a BMI under 30 usually gets Standard Rates anyway, insurance. So you know, if you’ve got someone with a BMI of 30 taking, you know, the condition taking Manjaro, prescribed through the NHS probably not really a concern. If you’ve got someone with a BMI of 50 taking it, you will probably see significant weight loss very, very quickly. Yes. And what you tend to find with those types of cases is the insurer will usually put half of the weight back on them, so they’ll almost rate them. Let’s say they’ve gone from a BMI of 50 to a BMI of 40. This is really, really simple. Sim, simple, simplified. Thank you, simplified. You can’t cut that out. So going from, say, a BMI of 50 down to a BMI of 40, well, they’d probably assess them on a BMI around about 45 it almost

 

Kathryn Knowles  17:58

takes saying there’s that we’re seeing that thing where a year down the line, lots of weight has been lost, but it starts to creep out cookbooks. Obviously, from my understanding the weight loss drugs, it suppresses the appetite. So you don’t want to eat. You know, there’s just no desire to have the food, which is why people are losing the weight. It’s not that, in a sense, the drug is doing anything in like tackling the fat cells or anything. It is just suppressing the appetite. So obviously, when you stop that, naturally, the appetite does start to come back. And it’s very

 

Alan Knowles  18:23

similar to gastric sleeves, gastric bypasses and things like that. They work in a very similar fashion in terms of an underwriting perspective. Yeah,

 

Kathryn Knowles  18:33

that’s really good to know. So what could people expect then, I know just kind of touched on it a little bit. But if you were going to go forward for an application for somebody and they do have a higher BMI, what do you what are the potential things that you expecting? I know this might be different for the products as well.

 

Alan Knowles  18:46

Yeah, so, so, as in what terms, or what medical terms is

 

Kathryn Knowles  18:50

later, and you’ve had the questions beforehand, so you know what’s coming up? Seriously, no, as in, like, I’m going to have to just say it for you now, so it’s in medical

 

Alan Knowles  19:02

so if you’ve got someone, and this will depend on what the BMI is, and it all comes down to that, that number at the end of the day as a very, very broad brush, I would say, if their BMI is 40 or more, expect a medical it’s not an absolute, but it’s it’s likely if the BMI is under 40, again, it’s not an absolute, but you may get away without a medical. And there’s obviously discrepancies there between the product and the insurers. Usually a GPR isn’t necessary, isn’t necessarily going to be required, unless there has been gastric surgery, or you’re potentially looking at one of the weight loss surgeries, and they might want to see a little bit more information. Or, of course, if there is a weight related medical condition, but yeah, just purely a high BMI. 40 is probably that magic number, but not an absolute.

 

Kathryn Knowles  19:55

I think that’s probably a good time, though, if you get notified about potentially needing a medical or. Be doing your research. That’s probably a good time when you were saying about the whole thing, right? Oh, do you want to just pop on the scales kind of thing? Not, not as in, like you’re going to have them in the office or anything like that. But, you know, do you want to just check that before we go for the medical? Because I know for ourselves, as well as a company, you know, we’ve had lots of people right on that cusp of, are they potentially going to get terms? Not get terms? It is going to come down to the medical. And you do often find that the weight is different once the medicals happen. And that’s not I think there’s plenty of people I’ve spoken to that situation, and I genuinely don’t think that all of them have deliberately tried to say that they were lower weights. I think people genuinely think that they are certain weight, and then they just haven’t realized that maybe they have put more weight on

 

Alan Knowles  20:40

the other thing to that as well is that most people wear themselves in their underwear in the morning, because they wear the least, usually in the morning without all the clothes on. That’s what I do, yeah. Whereas a medical is done in your clothing in the middle of the day,

 

Kathryn Knowles  20:56

I always wear, really like clothing I like where we really like a dress, yeah? And then make sure, obviously, not in the middle of winter, but then make sure I’ve got like, sandals on or something so I can, like, and then do that thing of and I don’t know if anyone else does this, but I get on the scales and then breathe out. I’m like, I’m not gonna have my breath also taken to a company, yeah, I’m not having any extra pounds for my breathing. You cut

 

Alan Knowles  21:20

your finger nails as well. It’s a little bit there, and half

 

Kathryn Knowles  21:23

my head is staved. So yeah, I’m taking off my hair.

 

Alan Knowles  21:27

But interesting in another area that we’ve kind of not talked about is waist measurement and dress size. And that’s relevant here as well. Because so for fellas, typically they will ask for not all insurers, but some will ask for waist measurement. Now, if your waist measurement is under 40, not use your problem. If your waist measurement is 40 or more. Again, medicals may be loadings because they’re looking for people. Again, you’re talking about that body shape and BMI not being kind of the be all and end all. We’re actually looking people who carry it around the middle. For women, they tend to go off dress size instead of worst measurement, because obviously it’s, it’s probably more relevant, I guess, no,

 

Kathryn Knowles  22:04

but it isn’t. And I was going to say, I’m sure that any woman listening to this right now will be going, No, exactly because, and everybody knows as much. So whenever I speak to clients about this, I’ll say, sorry. So what is your dress size? And I’ve got, and I know that it’s different per shop, because every single brand in the UK for women is the sizing is completely different. But also, I mean, as I say, I tend to carry my weight more in my hips and my thighs. I am slim, but I’d say on average, if I was to get a dress, I would probably get a size 10. But if I were to get trousers, I’d probably need to get a 12 or 14. So it isn’t completely set in stone, yeah, and as the way it works. But again, it’s just that generalized thing, isn’t it, from the insurance. But the other thing that just popped into my head, and I’ve forgotten about it, and it’s come back in now, so I’m going to say it before I forget it. But we also do have it as well with some insurance, don’t we? Where they’re now doing facial Yeah, scanning as part of the application underwriting process. Because the the and I did it once with one only an international provider, isn’t, I think, who’s doing this? But I it was when we were doing some we were a conference, an underwriting conference, and it was something that was shown a lot more. So there are apps on phones now where, obviously you turn the app on, it forward, facing camera to you, and it can do so much. It like, there’s certain things it picks up on your face where it can tell, I think it’s like your blood pressure, your pulse rate, other things as well, your BMI, just by looking at your face, which I have absolutely no idea how that works at all, because, you know, you could have some with a really thin face, but then the body could be larger. But again, it must go off averages. But really interesting that that’s starting to come in a bit more because, again, that’s kind of taking it in some ways a bit away from the BMI in some in some instances, because it’s trying to get more of that data based upon the person right there and then. But that is proving to be quite an interesting new development. I say, as you say, just as an international provider at the moment, not your mainstream, but who knows, in the UK, maybe,

 

Alan Knowles  24:02

maybe, you know, it’s the reinsurers who bring this tech in, I think, a lot of the time. So you know, it would be interesting to see the only other point I will make on waste measurement. Then, obviously going on your point from from dress size. So some insurers ask for waste measurement. Some ask for trouser size. Yes. Now my trouser size is probably far more, far lower than my waist measurement, because a waist measurements done around the belly button. Yeah. So again, you kind of have to be careful with the whole medical situation and make sure that you know people are doing this right. Because if they ask about trouser size, I would, for example, be a 34 or a 36 inch trouser. But actually, if I would have a medical and have my waist measurement once around the belly button, it’s probably going to be nearer the 40 mark. And I think most people, unless you Simon Cowell, don’t tend to wear the trousers that high. So again, it’s just having it sounds like a minefield. It’s not really, but having that waist measurement as opposed to trouser size, is probably. Probably quite an important, yeah, factor in it as well. I think

 

Kathryn Knowles  25:02

it’s what we’re saying on this. It’s coming across quite complex in some ways now, but for the majority of clients, it is just going to be, what’s your height, what’s your weight, maybe the ways to measurement or child size, address, size, and then that’s it. Unless there’s extra stuff, there’s we’re not generally going to be going into medicals in regards to BMI, it is, if there’s other things coming along, it is depending upon the product type and obviously, where that BMI is. But we also what’s, what can be, in a sense, quite nice about BMI, no, and I say it’s not nice for the client, but nice in terms of an advice point of view. If you get those BMI tables from the insurer, it will say, once you’ve hit this number, BMI, this is your percentage once you’ve but I do think, though sometimes, when you are close, sometimes we do get a rounding up, don’t we, so like, you might have somebody with, like a BMI of 29.7 and it might just push them to 30. And in terms of the insured system, yes,

 

Alan Knowles  25:53

it usually is a rounding as you would expect, point five or more goes up. Point four nine or lower goes down,

 

Kathryn Knowles  26:00

yeah, and typically, exactly. And do bear in mind, especially depending on the product type, when you’re seeing those ratings coming up, it’s a big difference. And the other thing I was going to just again, another one that’s popped into my mind, is people asking you, so what weight do I need to be to get the lower? And that’s a really sensitive conversation, you know, because if you say to me, Look, you know, this is the price, you go, Well, I’ve seen this. And it’s just like you then have to say, well, unfortunately, due to the application disclosures and and a lot of the time, people then recognize and say, Is it because of my height and weights? And it’s obviously sensitively, explain that yes, it is. And they’ll go, so what do I need to be? So what would you do in that situation?

 

Alan Knowles  26:35

Yeah, so I tell people. And the reason that I would tell people what you need to be to get, say, standard rates for a lower rating. Because I would, I would fiddle with the systems or look at the that sounds worse,

 

Kathryn Knowles  26:47

but you put in the right information, but you play with the systems to find out the standard term level.

 

Alan Knowles  26:52

Thank you. Thank you for saving me that exactly, that exactly. Oh, the underwriters got Alan, what you’re doing. Oh, I would look at the tables. Now, the reason that I would do that is not to encourage a customer to non disclose, because you have that information, you know that, and any good advisor is not going to put wrong information in there. But actually, what it does is it gives the client a goal, and it gives them something because actually, if they can see that tangible benefit, where they say, actually, do you know what I can do that in the next year? And we review it, and we have a look. And we’ve got quite a few clients, and we ask them to jump on the scales and stuff like that. And, you know, you know, the ones

 

Kathryn Knowles  27:25

not in Cuba, just telephone base, we don’t weigh our clients.

 

Alan Knowles  27:29

And there is an element of trust in that. Of course, there is. But, you know, you can usually tell, because people will say, Oh no, unfortunately, I’ve not, it’s been, you know, a difficult one. I’ve not been able to do it. Or they’ll say, Absolutely, do you want me to take a picture of the scale sort of thing? And, you know, sort of thing? And you know, they’ll, they’ll offer it to you so and it’s a really good way to review the client, to get something better for them. And actually, if that helps improve their health a little bit, because they’ve lost some weight as well in a healthy fashion, fantastic,

 

Kathryn Knowles  27:55

I have to say, as well. I think it’s really important that advisors are also careful here with volunteering that information, because let’s say that somebody has, I’m going to pick random numbers here, but let’s say somebody just had a BMI of 40, and we know that if they get to like a BMI of 36 that there’s going to be better options. And I’ve said picking really random numbers here before you go into the proper number side of things. You know, dropping four BMI points, it isn’t a small amount, so, but it’s not masses of weight, but it’s not small amounts of weight. And actually, that might feel too much for somebody, and also, as well, you might really insult somebody, you know, BMI, if somebody does have BMI, not everybody, but quite a few people can feel quite sensitive. They can feel potentially judged, which is again, why a telephone based call might be easier for some people. And the last thing you want to do is just be telling them, oh, well, you’re going to be paying 30 pound a month. But you know, if you lose eight pounds, I’ll get it down to 20 quid. You have to be very mindful of your client, the relationship that you have, the questions that they’re asking. And you know, you can’t just say to anybody, yeah, go and lose half stone, and we’ll get you there. To be

 

Alan Knowles  29:01

clear, I would never offer that information unless I was asked, yeah, exactly. That’s why somebody shows an interest. Absolutely, if it feels the right thing to do, then do it. But you never, ever just go, oh, by the way, you’re only a few points over. Do you want to, you know, try and lose a bit of weight or something and come back? Yeah, that’s not the way. It doesn’t

 

Kathryn Knowles  29:19

feel right, and it feels very sensitive. And to be honest, for the risk of hurting somebody’s feelings, you know, which the majority of people would be hurt, it’s just not worth it at all. And, you know, and, and whilst, yes, it would better, potentially, if we’re in these levels, to have a lower BMI, um, just generally for their health, that’s not our place. And it could make it seem as if we’re being judgmental when we really shouldn’t be. So we’re coming towards the last bit. So last question for Alan, and then I’m going to give some case studies. So Alan, what are we going to be? What are you thinking? So, like, I think we can probably say some of the BMI lower than 30. We’re probably going to be getting Standard Rates most places for the products most Yeah, yeah. So we’re probably going to be talking more about if we’re going over. Over 30. Yeah. And what are you going to be expecting in terms of life insurance, criticalness, income protection, what would be your general point is to say, Well, I think at this level, this would be the rating stuff like that. Okay,

 

Alan Knowles  30:11

so few caveats in this that I’ll just just put first age plays quite a big factor into this. So a younger client will be penalized more than an older client. So basically, you know, for so you you usually find on the on the tables from insurers, that if somebody’s 60 and they’ve got a BMI of 33-34 they’re more likely to get, say, standard rates than if you’re a 20 year old with a BMI of 33-34 because they expect that as we get a little bit older, we might have a little bit more more weight, sort of carried a little bit less muscle, etc. So usually for life insurance, I guess there’s a bit of a generalization, yeah, over 30, under 30, usually standard rates. There are a couple where younger clients, BMI, are 29 you might now squeeze in a 25% load.

 

Kathryn Knowles  30:57

And I just want to clarify here as well, for everybody, we are purely talking high BMI here. We are not talking about if you have a low BMI. So if you were below 19, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking at the moment between 19 and 30, we would expect standard most places. But sorry, it’s fair point.

 

Alan Knowles  31:15

And actually, interestingly, lower BMI is treated even stricter than a high BMI. Very quickly gets to a decline. If a BMI is too low, similar for CI, to be fair, again, you know you probably standard for under 30. For most 30 plus, you’re maybe starting to get into small loadings. So I don’t know. Let’s say we had a 40 year old male non smoke, a BMI of 35 life and CI, I would probably be expecting something in the region of a 50% load. In maybe a 75 with some BMI is over 40. You’re typically getting into slightly higher loadings at that point. You know you’re probably more expecting 100% plus for life and CI, interestingly, there is one insurer, and only one that I’m aware of who different, who differentiates between male and female, they are more lenient with female BMI than they are with males. But the majority, since gender sort of equalization, pricing in 2012 will treat them exactly the same income protection, similar ish to Ci. You again, you probably, you know, 50, 75% loading for that kind of 30 to 3839 BMI, 40 is where CI and IP starts to get difficult. You’re probably only going to find a couple of providers who will even do it for a BMI between 40 and 42 maybe 43 for an older client, maybe 44 if it’s CI and it’s a female client. So I know I’m giving quite specific information there,

 

Kathryn Knowles  32:44

and this is your mainstream insurance. We’re not talking about your specialist products, especially providers. The

 

Alan Knowles  32:49

thing to bear in mind with income protection and critical illness is, if you reach a 150% load in it usually just declines that that is usually the cut off, whereas life insurance under a standard provider can quite often go up to a bit up to about 400% increase. So you will get life higher than you will CI for life insurance standard market, 4445 maybe 46 kind of is your standard upper end, higher loading to 150, 200% 45 plus. To say 45 you’re getting into more specialist insurer territory. This is life insurance only, by the way. Now over 45 to 55 roughly, you could be anywhere from maybe a 300% load in up to 500% loading in that region. 55 to 60 you’re going super specialist. You’re going to be very expensive, 60 plus, to my knowledge, at the moment, pretty much a decline across the board. Underwritten. Once you are 60 plus on a BMI, you are probably starting to look more at non underwritten for certainly for life insurance you are where there might be pre existing health condition exclusions and things like that. Does that help? Is that a bit of

 

Kathryn Knowles  34:00

a rough Yeah, good thing I have to say as well, just to clarify. So this is for your, like, your personal and your business protections as well, if your group would be different, because group doesn’t actually work in a different way. But I think the majority of people are looking at the personal side of things. So those kind of guides are really, really useful. So I’ve got some case studies now where I’ve got some, like, really specific information. I’ve got three case studies just with a range of BMI and products, just so that people can see roughly what we might be expecting. So the first one is an income protection case study, somebody in their late 30s with a BMI of 38 there was also some additional disclosures, such as pre diabetes, depression and a few others. We were able to arrange 1800 pounds of a monthly benefit for income protection, the four week deferred period it was going to age 68 maximum to your claim per claimable event with having the depression, there was an exclusion for mental health on there. But by that, you know, everything else was covered, as you would expect, and that was 33 pounds per month. Month, and that takes into account the higher BMI as well. The second case study, we’re looking at life insurance. So with this one, it’s BMI of 41 and the other person had a BMI of 31 so mid 20s. I know you’re saying Alan about being rated more harshly if you were younger. So you know, say we’ve got a BMI of 41 already in that area where you say we’re saying we’re going to get the higher ratings, the mid 20s. So again, we’re going to get, still see higher ratings non smokers. Only disclosures was the BMI they needed decreasing life insurance of 135,000 over 30 years, and the premium 16 pounds per month. So that’s one six per month. And I think that’s really important to recognize, especially on the life insurance, you know, we’ve said over 40, you’re going to start getting the higher ratings. If you need 20s, you’re going to get the higher ratings. And yes, that’s happened, but it’s still, I want to say only 16 pounds per month. So yes, it is higher premium than the standard, but it’s not, it’s not to the point of everyone thinking, Oh, this not worth it. I mean, 16 pounds is, well, you’re

 

Alan Knowles  36:00

starting premium. Your starting premium is so low anyway, that even if you’re tripling it,

 

Kathryn Knowles  36:05

it’s still it’s that’s what you see in the life insurance. With life insurance, it’s the ratings usually aren’t anywhere near as intense as people think. They’re going to be critical as cover income protection. You know, the the ratings can seem quite intense because the starting premiums are so much higher than life insurance in the first place. Case study three was a BMI of somebody, and their BMI was 83 so that’s 83 on the BMI. They were their mid 30s. They’re a non smoker. And what we did is we had to go for non medically underwritten cover due to the BMI being at the level. That is, as Alan has said, once you’re starting to get, you know, into the 50s, you know, into the 40s with some providers. This declines, 50s declines, declines with even more 60s declines, the majority. So non medically underwritten was the only option for this person. So there was life insurance of 100,000 pounds, also able to include some cancer cover, which was 20,000 pounds, and that was for 40 pounds and 25 pence per month. And that one does come with a pre existing condition exclusion, which is pretty standard for the non medically underwritten options, because with those ones, they’re not medically underwritten at point of application, but they are medically underwritten at point of claim. So there we are. Thank you for listening, everybody. Thank you Alan for joining me. It’s really good as always. Thank you for having me. Next time, I’m going to be chatting with Joe Miller from the iptf, the income protection Task Force, to talk about what is going on in the IP world at the moment. If you want to know more, do visit our website, practicalhythprotection.co.uk, and don’t forget, if you’ve listened to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD on our website too. Thank you very much for listening. Everybody Speak to you soon.