COVID-19 has had the biggest short-term effect on life insurance in two ways:
Insurers extending grace periods for paying premiums.
Placing a greater emphasis on accelerated underwriting.
Full article at the link below.
Underwriting Among Early Effects Of COVID-19 On Life Insurance
I don’t really understand what underwriting is, let alone accelerated underwriting. I looked it up and read a couple articles from Google, but still don’t understand it. I know it has something to do with risk. I remember when my mother was in her 80s, I had to look around for quite a while to find a policy that would still cover her. She was going to be dropped by her old one. Actually with my mother as I recall it was an annuity not life insurance. So that may be different.
Remember I come from a life insurance background, underwriting specialist at your service. Put simply the underwriting process is risk selection, deciding who qualifies for coverage and at what price. It has been my life’s work to understand the things that impact an individual’s longevity and charge premiums appropriately.
Accelerated means time to issue. Companies are shortening the time it takes to underwrite by streamlining processes and using alternative data sources instead of medical records from doctors and hospitals.
Your clear concise reply explains this concept so much better than multiple google pages. Thank you!
Is this different from an actuary?
Yes. Actuaries use complex models to set prices for large groups of people. Underwriters work supports the actuarial pricing model on a case by case basis. Bad underwriting = lower or no profits. Bad actuarial pricing means the company is really screwed.