Health Insurance Articles
How An Insurance Company Might Obtain Evidence Of Insurability
2011-08-28
When you are looking around for health insurance, the company that you will sign with usually asks for insurability. In most cases, they will ask you to submit it directly to the insurance company but sometimes they will seek it on their own. This evidence of insurability provides the company with the information they need to be able to secure the rate that they had quoted you. This means that you need to be very honest with your questions because they will find out the answers anyways.
After you have signed the papers to enact your premium, most insurance companies will submit forms to you, asking for evidence of insurability. These are to be taken to your primary care physician or other doctor to be filled out and submitted to the insurance company. The questions on these forms will ask about smoking habits, pre-existing conditions and general health.
Once the company gets to see the information, they will be able to determine if everything that you had told them in the beginning is accurate and issue you all of the policy information. There is usually a caveat in the paperwork at the beginning that will protect the insurance company, claiming that if the information is not accurate that they have the right to raise your premium.
This information will also help insurance companies determine if you have had creditable coverage in the past. When you have this, it will protect you against the clause for pre-existing coverage so that they don't increase your rate or deny your coverage.
If the insurance company does not ask for you to submit the information, they can obtain it on their own by contacting your previous insurance company or by contacting your primary care physician. They are legally allowed to obtain this information because you have signed off, giving them the permission to collect it. If you don't give them the permission, then you won't be able to receive a medical policy.
Any doctor is legally bound to produce the information for the company so that they can see your full medical record, including your age, past insurance coverage and any illnesses that you have every been diagnosed with.
As you read through the paperwork of your policy, you may have seen the term EOI which is how evidence of insurability is often termed. Ever company will have specific requirements of what they will consider covering and what they won't. It is always important to know what these are if you plan on switching insurance companies so that you don't get surprised with a sudden increase in your monthly premium.
