Xan wrote: ↑Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:27 am
Doesn't that just mean that people who have their lives insured aren't statistically more likely to die? Pretty much that excludes anybody who's retired, doesn't it?
Not really. There are new life insurance products that include the ability to draw from the policy while the insured is still alive, to cover medical expenses. It's an alternative to disability insurance. When I looked into it for my mom, I thought it was substantially better and I (along with her Morgan Stanley financial advisor) urged her to get it. There was a cutoff of age 80 (or 82, I can't quite remember) and she needed to pass a physical. In fact I'm thinking about signing up for this myself.
I'm not sure what the bar was for passing the physical, because she wasn't much of a test - at the time she was healthy except for mild hypertension. Assuming they would only block people with obvious late stage stuff like cancer or advanced heart disease, there could be a lot of sick elderly people with life insurance. If rates are holding constant, that is indeed a pretty good signal that despite the highly publicized COVID death counts, there isn't a lot in the way of years of life lost. (A statistic I would very much like to see, especially because no one seems interested in looking into it.)
Also, compared to most terminal conditions, COVID is fast and dirt cheap. It's mainly about supportive care, and it's all over in a matter of a few weeks. Compare that to cancer (IV infusions of shockingly expensive chemotherapy drugs, radiation, surgeries, on and on x years) or heart disease (very expensive interventional procedures and surgeries, expensive medications, also dragging on for years). This is surely reducing long-term costs for insurance companies and most especially for Medicare and Medicaid, though I have no idea how these would figure into life insurance premiums.