What you need to know about MIB and how it functions | Underwriting for life insurance

Posted by Jack Cotlar on Mon, Feb 20, 2012 @ 09:34 AM

Who reports information to MIB? Any life insurance application sent to a MIB Member Company that includes a signed authorization obligates the company's underwriting department to report to MIB, as a code, certain underwriting information disclosed in the medical records and application and insurance exam. This is done regardless of whether the case is issued, not issued or withdrawn. What are not coded are adverse underwriting decisions such as declinations and ratings. Another misunderstanding is that attending physicians report information to MIB; they do not. MIB currently purges the MIB records after seven years.

MIB Group, Inc. is a membership corporation owned by about 470 member insurance companies in the US and Canada. MIB's services "protect insurers, policyholders and applicants from attempts to conceal or omit information material to the sound and equitable underwriting of life, health, disability income, critical illness and long-term care insurance ... Authorized underwriting personnel of the Member company review the application information provided by the person applying for insurance and compare it to what is in the person's MIB file. The information in the person's MIB file is used only as an alert. No underwriting decision can be made solely on the basis of a coded report, such as issuing a policy with an extra premium or declining to offer coverage."

A consumer may request free disclosure of his or her consumer report once annually. Only he or she can request an MIB file on his or her behalf. A U.S. resident can call MIB's toll-free telephone number 866-692-6901 to request disclosure of the file. Specifics about how to do so can be found HERE.

For more information go to MIB's Consumer Guide.

Topics: Dr. Cotlar, Life insurance medical underwriting, MIB, Strategic Medical Consulting, underwriting for life insurance, medical undewriting, medical underwriting guidelines