Insurance Life

Some companies are not good at underwriting any cancer history. So, let's throw them out and look at how a company with experienced underwriters will consider an application for a person with a history of treated prostatic adenocarcinoma.

When a person is diagnosed with prostate cancer one of the results of the pre-treatment testing should be a Gleason Score. The Gleason system predicts the aggressiveness of a tumor with a score of 2 to 10. A low Gleason score is non aggressive while a high Gleason score is aggressive and more likely to spread to other sites. So, the underwriter will need to know what your Gleason score was prior to treatment. Another measure of the prostate that the underwriter will want to know is your pretreatment PSA level. Next we look at three scenarios.

The first is a best case scenario for man who has been treated by radical prostatetectomy. Presently underwriters are comfortable with this treatment because they have had a lot of experience with it over the years. This is not to say that you won't have better overall results with an alternative treatment. In this scenario the Gleason score was under 6 and the pretreatment PSA was under 20. One year after treatment PSA is undetectable. The problem is considered resolved and no rating is applied.

The next best case scenario involves a man who elected an alternative therapy to destroy the tumor(s). In this case the Gleason score was under 6 and the pretreatment PSA level was under 10. Two years after treatment the current PSA level is less than 0.5 with no rise in PSA since treatment. The cancer is considered resolved and no extra rating is applied.

Now let's consider a person who had a Gleason scale of 7 and, a pretreatment PSA of less than 20. One year after prostatetectomy the PSA is undetectable.

Because of the higher Gleason score the underwriter is going to view this as a higher risk that the cancer will appear in another location for six years after treatment. That's fine if six years has gone by since your treatment but what only one year has passed? Should you consider paying extra to get the insurance now? The answer is yes for two reasons. First, since you had a higher Gleason score your chance of having a cancer at another site is elevated and so is your need for life insurance. Second, we have found that we can get the insurance companies to place the extra charge on the policy as a temporary flat extra. What this means is that after the sixth year you can ask to have the extra charge removed as long as no further cancers have occurred. After they have been removed the premium for your policy is the same as if you had bought the policy with no extra rating. If you wait several years to buy your life insurance, the premium will be higher than a policy with the extra charge removed as you are applying at an older age.

The bottom line is that you can get Life Insurance after being treated for prostate cancer. In some cases there is no extra rating, other times the extra charge can be temporary. Each case is unique so you really need an experienced agent who is willing to take the time to discuss you case with a number of underwriters.

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