Now-a- days it is common to see advertisements by life Insurance and general Insurance companies offering a life or health cover up to a certain age, usually 40 years or 45 years without a medical test. This is because such policies without the inconvenience of going through a comprehensive check up attract more potential clients who would think twice or forever postpone taking those which requires medicals to be done. This could be due to a variety of reasons-

• With a hectic lifestyle which leaves people with little time for themselves, taking time out for going through a medical examination is an added hassle.
• Some people are scared or just don’t like to get a checkup done.
• They may be scared that the medical test may reveal some health issue they are not aware of.
• They genuinely have some health problem and fear that they may not be able to take an insurance policy if they get the test done.
• They need the policy issued immediately, since they need to show the document as proof before a specified date for section 80 C tax rebate!

But, irrespective of your health status, the no-medical policies have their own drawbacks which one should be aware of-

• One of the biggest drawbacks is that such policies are more expensive, since the insurance company is taking an extra risk by not checking the insured’s health before issuing him or her the policy.
• The maximum life cover one can take in such policies is usually restricted, for obvious reasons. Hence if one wants to take a term policy with a huge life cover, a medical test becomes mandatory.
• A no medical test policy requires a good health declaration by the insured, hence the entire onus of revealing all the facts lies on the policyholder. If later the company gets any reason to believe that the insured did not disclose certain material facts regarding his or her health, they could cancel the policy altogether, and it would become very difficult for him or her to approach some other insurance company for the same.
• Insurance companies which do not conduct a medical test while issuing policies usually do a thorough investigation while processing claims for such policies, and if they discover that the client had a pre-existing illness which could have caused his or her death, there are chances that the claim could get rejected, defeating the whole purpose of taking the policy.

Hence it is advisable to take a life or health insurance policy only after going through the medical examination, since by doing so, one eliminates the risk of the company denying the claim on grounds of non-disclosure of any pre-existing health condition. Also the process has become simpler now, with the insurance companies sending the medical examiners home to conduct the tests at a convenient date and time. And also, the medical test could reveal some health issue like cholesterol or sugar at the very initial stage which would help one take preventive measures to stop them from escalating in the future.