The definition of a no-medical-exam life insurance simply means that you may purchase a life insurance policy without having to undergo a medical exam before the policy would be issued. On the other hand, if the insurance company was requiring you to undergo a medical exam prior to issuing the policy then the procedure is as follows: The insurance company contracts with a private nurse to come to your home and draw blood for testing. The nurse would also ask you to give her a urine sample. She has been instructed also to check for a cognitive disorder like Alzheimer’s. For example, she might ask you to repeat the answers to simple memory questions that you may have already answered when she first arrived. She will probably check for ease of mobility by asking you to walk across the room. If the policy that you are purchasing does not require this medical exam it might be because of the face amount of coverage that you are buying. Insurance companies vary on this, but many companies do not require an exam if the face amount is less than $100,000. Some companies don’t require an exam even for higher amounts. But they will ask 15 or more health questions on the application to rule out higher risk applicants.
But don’t think that you will be able to fool an insurance company by hiding information since you didn’t have to take a medical exam. The insurance company will always check for information that has been posted on the MIB,(Medical Information Bureau). Doctors and Hospitals send information from your medical records to the MIB on a regular basis. Even if some medical condition that you may have has somehow fallen through the MIB crack, you still won’t get away with fooling the insurance company. If you have a medical condition that the insurance company considers uninsurable and they issue you a policy because you lied on the application, they will deny your claim once medical records have been requested and the pre-existing condition has been found out and confirmed. Many insurance companies don’t pull medical records until a claim has been filed. If the company denies your claim, then they would refund all the premiums that have been paid since the policy was issued.
There are a few insurance companies out there that offer life insurance in small amounts like $8000 or $10,000 without a medical exam and no medical records will ever be checked. The way this type of policy works is that you must stay alive for at least 2 years after the policy issues in order to receive benefits. The person who is otherwise uninsurable due to some serious health risk may purchase this type of life insurance simply to provide for the burial coverage amount. The insurance company hopes of course, that you will stay alive as long as possible to collect as much premium as possible, but they are aware that individuals purchasing this type of policy are probably in a high risk category. This is the reason for the 2 year requirement of staying alive before benefits would be paid upon death. This eliminates having to pay benefits to those that purchase life insurance when they have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.
So if your insurance company is advertising that you can purchase life insurance without having to take a medical exam, that’s great! Most people don’t like needles anyway. But remember that you won’t be able to get away with hiding any medical condition from the insurance company. They have ways of making you talk.