What is Up With Americo?

[Newby]

I'm willing to bet 80% of Fe clients won't tell you if they smoke an occasional cigar are chew

They will if you ask the question right.

Mr. Smith we need to know if you have smoked even one cigar or used chew in the past 12-months. If you do, we stick to companies that do not rate up for this and you are covered at a great price.

If we say no but you really have, the company has the right to contest the claim and not pay your wife. It defeats the whole purpose of the insurance.

We want to get you the lowest rate on the policy that you really qualify for. Not try to slide something past them that gives them the right to not pay.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

I'm willing to bet 80% of Fe clients won't tell you if they smoke an occasional cigar are chew

Especially the females...

 

[Newby]

Especially the females...

They don't want to look like fun girls from Raleigh.

----------

Opps. I meant fun girls from Mt. Pilot.

http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/travel/blogpost/11283041/

 

[jdeasy]

I'm willing to bet 80% of Fe clients won't tell you if they smoke an occasional cigar are chew

I don't get that. I ask directly if they smoke cigarettes, a pipe or a cigar or if the chew or dip.

They tell me. And the question is not occassional. They can smoke a pipe or cigar or chew every day and be non tobacco with Americo.

 

[kuhn123]

I really want to write more Americo, but they have proven to be completely unreliable regarding underwriting decisions.

I am an excellent field underwriter and know my medications, but half of the apps I have sent in over the past six months... that SHOULD have been issued with no problems... have been unnecessarily rated up.

Take my most recent case; late 70s, smoker, COPD, takes gabapentin for non-diabetic nerve damage. Should be a slam-dunk UP2, right?

Well Americo rates it up to a UP3 because "they cannot fully develop the risk." What the hell is that?

Beyond not writing them anymore, does anyone have enough experience with Americo to explain what I might be missing with placing these cases?




Thanks,
Dave

I agree with you Dave. I have consistently put over 150-200/yr with Americo since 2008, but that will change significantly this year. Product changes play some role in that, but the primary reason is the lack of reliable underwriting decisions and their home office as a whole is no where near what it used to be.

We have had 2 separate meeting at the home office regarding the inconsistent underwriting over the past year, and each time the results are the same; confusion runs amock.

Have been told that there are special "cocktails" of meds, that when they appear together, are Automatically UP3. Not a problem at all, if we know what these mythical "cocktails" are. Said they would happily get that list out to the field, then 6 months later Americo said that even they don't know what the "cocktails" consisted of. They are part of the automated process. Keep in mind that this has nothing to do with medications taken along with diabetes, but other completely innocuous meds that when taken alone are no problem, but together are declined/up3.

The latest decline I had was for simvistatin(high cholesterol), requip(restless leg syndrome), testosterone(hormone therapy). Was confirmed that there were no MIB hits, and no additional meds on the script check. I chased it all the way to the top of the ladder, and this is the final response that I received:

Hi Matt,

There's really not any decent guidance I can give you on this to help with field underwriting, unfortunately.

Each drug, combination of drugs, combination of drugs with what kind of doctor (specialist) prescribed them, etc., has its own "value", and when that value adds up to over 20, they move over to UP 3. The evaluation of Rx is a very automated process.

No doubt there's at least part of this applicant's Rx profile that could be innocuous in another applicant, but the sum total here adds up to UP 3.

Thanks,
********
I thought, "Great, now we are on to something, just let us know those values and we can apply that formula in the field". That has not happened and I am not holding my breath.
In my opinion the biggest mistake they made was investing the resources to develop the iPad app for Eagle instead of UP. The process is could be great (getting immediate approval w/MIB and scripts yourself), but put it on a sub-par and extremely niche product.

Matt

 

[Rearden]

Matt:

Thanks for taking the time to write your response and confirming what I intuitively figured was going on.

Clearly, underwriting is not transparent, and weird cases like those you and I have experience are enough to not trust the outcomes often enough to use them on a regular basis.

Good thing there are plenty of fish in the sea.

 

[yaknow1]

Doesn't Equitable follow Americo's underwriting and pricing, but with a phone interview and approval? Never used them, just curious.

 

[goillini52]

Doesn't Equitable follow Americo's underwriting and pricing, but with a phone interview and approval? Never used them, just curious.

Don't know about that, but Americo reinsures Equitables life business.

Maybe someone who has both could tell you.

 

[Glen Shelton]

Americo's changes last summer was to make UP2, what was their graded plan, immediate coverage. That's a good thing. But they also made cigaette smokers UP2 even if otherwise healthy. That's a bad thng. Especially when they had good smoker rates before. That made them a no go for healthy smokers. For COPD and still smoking their rates are far better than Trans. For the non smoker with COPD Trans is better priced. I was intending to write 2 Americo's on Tues. Bith non smokers. Turned out they were DE payers so I used Trans. It was less than a dollar a month higher to use Trans but the apps I faxed in were 10 pages each. And hat was no replacement. That would have been 3 more pages each. They had to sign so many pages they even asked about it. I will be using more Trans because of that smoking change that Americo made but I'm sure not looking forward to it.

I consistently hear how the Trans app is an absolute beast. I am not currently contracted with them, How many signatures does it take for a completed application? I just don't understand why an FE application would really need more than 2 or 3 signatures...

 

[peteybear]

As few as 6 or as many as 8. Try a 42 page pru app sometime. Trans is child's play .