I recently applied for life insurance for the first time and was denied.
13 years ago I suffered an aortic dissection in a motor vehicle accident, this was provided as the reason why the policy was not offered.
The repair was done surgically and all of the cardiologists I have seen since my recovery have stated that I’m in perfect health and should have no future problems resulting from the accident.
I’m considering appealing the decision, does anyone know the best approach to do this? Should I submit reports from my doctors, or some other type of documentation?
You survived an aortic dissection? That’s amazing. My understanding is that an aortic dissection would kill most sufferers if it occurred while they were laying on an operating table surrounded by the best trauma team on earth.
Insurance companies are unlikely to consider a standard policy just because doctors say you are fine. Some will write a custom policy for you, but it will come at a much higher rate. I’d suggest contacting an independent insurance agent for more information.
Hey, they’re bad but not quite the (immediate) death sentence you seem to believe.
For example, and most ironically, the surgeon who devised the operation to repair dissections, Michael DeBakey, suffered one at age 97. He lived for almost three more years (after undergoing his operation)!
You need to sign up for the temporary high risk pool coverage until the rule that bars denial based on pre-existing conditions take effect. See here: Affordable Care Act - Wikipedia
Oddly, I’ve had zero issue getting health insurance. Just the damn life insurance. I wouldn’t particularly care, except that I now have a Mrs, and I worry about what she would do if something did happen to me.
In medicine, we don’t like to say “never,” but I wonder if your diagnosis was incorrect–or you misremembered the diagnosis.
Are you certain that you did not have a traumatic aortic disruption?
This is a completely different thing from an aortic dissection. Aortic dissections are not usually the result of blunt deceleration trauma. They result from intimal tears (inner lining of the aorta) which propogate between the layers of the aorta (and other vessels) and are commonly associated with underlying conditions that weaken the connective tissue of the aorta. These might include hypertension or Marfan’s.
There are post-surgical instances of aortic dissection (for example, after an aortic valve replacement for aortic valve incompetence), so in theory an individual with a weak connective tissue layer might have an aortic dissection after a decelerative blunt trauma force creates a traumatic disruption. But that would be highly unusual.
If I were in your shoes, I’d review my records. If the vascular/trauma surgeon is still in business you might get a letter from him.
If you had an ordinary (ordinary indeed! You are lucky to survive blunt trauma that disrupts your aorta but doesn’t kill you. Really really lucky…) aortic disruption in an otherwise healthy individual with normal physiology and it was repaired, you are essentially “cured” and not at further risk, as far as I know.
I know nothing about life insurance, and what happened to you (surviving a traumatic aortic disruption) is pretty doggone rare, so I have no idea if actuaries keep tables on this condition. On the other hand, if you had a regular spontaneous aortic dissection I wouldn’t insure you…
I’ll have to review my records again, you may be correct. Aortic dissection is what I think I remember from the original incident and it’s the term I’ve used since and none of my doctors (I’ve had a few over the years) have corrected me. Perhaps they were just being polite.
I should nitpick myself here and say that the two terms are commonly interchanged, even by physicians and medical literature, although they shouldn’t be.
This is a clear case where it pays to be a pedant.
That is, it’s common to call a traumatic aortic disruption a “traumatic aortic dissection” and in a technical sense, there is a dissection involved (in that the blood stays trapped behind a layer of tissue ballooning out from the aorta, which is how we usually pick up the diagnosis).
And you will see lots of internet–even medical references–conflating both terms.
But from a pathophysiological standpoint–and therefore what the life insurance actuaries care about–they are two entirely different things, so you are a good example of being nitpicky in picking the best term to use.
Get a letter calling it a “traumatic aortic disruption with definitive surgical repair, no underlying pathology and no expected sequelae” or similar verbiage, and avoid using the term “aortic dissection” so that you don’t get lumped in with the folks who have crappy underlying arteries.
To give you two real life examples:
Princess Diana died of a traumatic aortic disruption. Totally normal underlying physiology.
John Ritter died of an aortic dissection. Crappy underlying aorta.
Two completely different things.
You’ll see boatloads of sites–including medical ones–lumping the two together.
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining that. I’ve already requested my records, it will be interesting to see exactly what it says. Whenever I’ve requested them in the past I’ve had them sent directly to my new GP or cardiologist so I’ve never actually sat down and studied them.
Though I know I won’t understand much of what I read, I’m sure I’ll still have fun.
