It's possible that you could be in good health and yet be told by your life insurance company that your life insurance application has been turned down or put on hold pending further information. How could this be?

Underwriters at the insurance company assess your application based on your health conditions, your family history and the results of your life insurance medical exam. If you receive a surprise declination of your policy, don't panic, and don't assume you are uninsurable. If you're in good health and declined, it's likely that something popped up in the lab results that couldn't be explained.

Underwriters are cautious people: When they see something worrisome that isn't explained, they don't risk approving your application. But that doesn't mean it's the end of your application or that you have to apply somewhere else. Life insurance applications are a two-way street.

How to proceed

Your first step is to find out the reason for your application's declination or postponement. Contact the life insurance company to ask for the specific details of its decision; by law they must let you know. They may be able to send results directly to you, or they may send the results to your physician. Then, contact with your physician to go over the results. If there was a false positive or something abnormal that wasn't explained in the application, your doctor can provide further information for the underwriter.

It's possible that a life insurance medical exam could uncover a serious condition you didn't know about, but it's more likely that an abnormal but innocuous test result was the culprit. Providing the life insurer with evidence, such as other test results, that you are healthy is your best strategy.

In any case, you'll want to get the issue cleared up in case you make future applications. That's because life insurance exam results go into a giant database maintained by MIB Group. Every time you apply for an individually underwritten life, health or disability policy, your application answers and life insurance exam results, if applicable, are checked against previous application information in MIB's database. (This does not apply to group health, life or disability policies.) This helps insurance companies detect fraud — such as someone who lies about their health on an application.

You don't want an incorrect lab result hanging around in your MIB record.

But you don't want an incorrect lab result hanging around in your MIB record. You can request your own MIB record and dispute incorrect information in it through MIB.

If the lab results have uncovered a real medical condition, you have some decisions. The declination will be on your record and will act as a red flag for any future life insurance applications. You'll want to be able to demonstrate, if possible, that your condition is controlled and does not affect your general health or life expectancy. The more medical evidence you can show to support this, the better.

If necessary, there are brokers who specialize in finding life insurance for applicants with medical conditions. These "impaired-risk specialists" know which insurers are likely to approve applications for folks with a variety of "insurability" problems, such as smokers, the overweight and those with a cardiac history. For more, read How impaired-risk specialists find life insurance for people with medical problems.