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GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

glp1digest.com

61–70 of 640 posts

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a single person, perhaps fortunate. What about in aggregate? What if the math is so bad that your life insurer goes bankrupt?

... I just switch life insurance providers? Seriously, that's just not that big of a deal. It takes like a few days at most for simple term life. Can't speak to the other policies, which I understand are mostly tax vehicles anyway, but it's not hard to simply get a new life insurance policy if your current one goes kaput.

... and the question was about the aggregate effect. What happens if all life insurers go bankrupt?

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is obesity the only disease that taking medicine for is “cheating”? Which is more important: instilling your particular version of “discipline” into people, or saving billions in healthcare costs and millions of lives from suffering?

[flagged]

Taking medicine is a lifestyle choice.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#63
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Covered for the patient yes. For free, no.

Are you disputing that the patient with insurance does not have to pay anything or raising a non sequitur about “someone” needing to pay for it?

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#64
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what sucks about being on the prescriptions?

I'm just reporting my cached knowledge of people saying they experienced some adverse side effects. Also injections are not fun, even though they are probably a lot less annoying than they look.

In the 10 or so people I know who are on it, nearly all actually seem to enjoy it - reduced addictive tendencies/bad habits, appetite control, and reduced allergies seem to pretty well outweigh the minor side effects.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#65
More sensationalism. Insurers can simply adjust the policy accordingly to account for patients discontinuing the drug. They can also raise premiums if patients go off the drug, and there can be a cluse that stipulates this. This is literally the job of an actuary to reprice premiums . Insurers take a short-term hit and then adjust premiums to ensure it never happens again. This happened with California fire risk for example. Moreover, this drug will not increase life expectancy by that much even with lifetime patient compliance. The majority of obese people ,especially men, who take these drugs will still be overweight or obese, but just not as much as before.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#66
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... I just switch life insurance providers? Seriously, that's just not that big of a deal. It takes like a few days at most for simple term life. Can't speak to the other policies, which I understand are mostly tax vehicles anyway, but it's not hard to simply get a new life insurance policy if your current one goes kaput.

... and the question was about the aggregate effect. What happens if all life insurers go bankrupt?

Every single life insurer? All at once?

Jeez.... I guess in that scenario I become a billionaire because it will be very easy to scoop up some VC money to snoop up some of those newly unemployed actuaries to monopolize the market at a profit margin an order of magnitude larger than any of my now non-existent competition, because this is a financial product and doesn't require months of building a factory or something to offer.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#68

I was on Mounjaro for two months. I was also dieting and walking 10k steps a day. I lost 25 lb and my A1C went down to 5.0 from 5.7. All my cholesterol numbers were in range. I stopped taking it and lost 25 more. I haven’t regained the weight. People who gain it back did not learn the lesson and did not effectively change their habits. You need the discipline - and a good support system. But if you don’t have that an…

[flagged]

A lesson often learned painfully: in most cases there isn't a reward for doing things the hard way. You could argue that a magic weight loss drug will prevent people from making important lifestyle changes, but all else equal, a magic drug that helps you lose weight with seemingly no other downsides is an obvious net win for health. Losing weight once you put pounds on is hard, for both mental and physical reasons, and even just being able to lose weight is probably a huge help as it puts in reach what many consider to be intangible after years of failure.

I haven't tried a GLP-1 agonist myself because I'm not exactly severely overweight, but I do absolutely struggle to keep weight off. It's amazing how easy it is to re-gain weight and how hard it is to keep it off. If the worst side-effect of GLP-1 agonists is that it makes life insurance quotes harder, whatever; I think it's totally acceptable that some people will still struggle with improving their habits, I don't think it's likely to make it any worse. In my opinion I suspect it is likely to make it a bit better, by helping you break out of the cycle.

P.S.: since there is some neighboring discourse about whether being fat is a disease or a lifestyle choice, I'll just say this: I don't personally think it matters. I don't think arguing this distinction will actually help anyone. I don't really care for body positivity and I don't make excuses for my poor habits or being overweight, but I still don't think it makes losing weight much easier.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a single person, perhaps fortunate. What about in aggregate? What if the math is so bad that your life insurer goes bankrupt?

... I just switch life insurance providers? Seriously, that's just not that big of a deal. It takes like a few days at most for simple term life. Can't speak to the other policies, which I understand are mostly tax vehicles anyway, but it's not hard to simply get a new life insurance policy if your current one goes kaput.

You will be going through underwriting again, your new rate will be based on starting at an older age, and you'll have a new exclusion period begin (unless there are some provisions which prevent these in the event of a company failure). Hopefully you haven't had any significant health conditions present themselves since the original policy went into effect.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#70
post #4

Obesity is highly correlated with other medical conditions, from cancer to diabetes to heart disease. I wonder if there is a point at which it is cheaper for health insurance companies to offer subsidized or even free GLP-1s to patients than pay out for other specialized medications. For example, my insurance covers flu shots in my community every year because it's presumably less expensive to pay for the shots compa…

Add heart disease and blood pressure meds to the list of "we'd be better off as a group if more people took them as preventatives".
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