Guide
No-exam life insurance
Which applicants qualify, the underwriting method, and what applies if you don't meet accelerated criteria.
Many companies now provide expedited underwriting: for qualifying age and amount bands, they decide based on your application, prescription records, driving history, and public records—skipping the paramedical exam. Approvals sometimes arrive the same business day. Each quotation notes whether an exam is required, may be required, or is not needed for that policy.
What it changes
Waiving an exam isn't the same as waiving underwriting. Your statements are double-checked; a policy based on false statements can be voided in the first two years. If carriers find anything questionable in their data, they may still request an exam or testing; at that stage you choose whether to proceed.
Who tends to qualify
Usually candidates under approximately 60, requesting coverage under the carrier's accelerated threshold, with clean health history and no tobacco use for a year or longer. Recent bloodwork from a medical checkup can substitute for an exam at many carriers.
A paramedical exam, if required, is typically a 20- to 30-minute appointment at your home or workplace in the Hercules region, at no charge. For healthy applicants, test results frequently result in a rate upgrade, so an exam isn't necessarily bad.