Guide
No-exam life insurance
Which candidates qualify for faster underwriting decisions, the process involved, and what happens differently if you don't fit the profile.
Today's accelerated underwriting (also known as immediate issue) allows many carriers to approve policies rapidly: they analyze your application data, check your prescription and driving records, and run other background checks without requiring a medical visit. Approvals can arrive the same business day. This website's quotes indicate for each option whether a medical exam is mandatory, possible, or unnecessary.
What it changes
Accelerated underwriting bypasses the medical exam, but not the underwriting process itself. The carrier validates what you've reported, and policies written with inaccurate information can be adjusted in the initial two years. If the carrier uncovers anything flagged, they may still order tests or ask you for more information.
Who tends to qualify
Typical candidates for immediate-decision underwriting are under age 60, requesting standard policy amounts, with no significant past medical issues and no recent tobacco use. Some carriers will take recent bloodwork from a doctor's visit rather than ordering their own exam.
When an exam is part of the process, the paramedical examiner typically schedules a 20- to 30-minute visit at your home or workplace in the Santa Clara region, at no charge. For healthy candidates, test results frequently result in a better rate classification, so don't view an exam as inherently negative.