Stead Life

Built for longer lives.

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Life insurance was built for shorter lives.

Parts of the industry are still paying for that assumption, and so are policyholders.

I wrote up where it falls short for people planning to live long, and exactly how I’m building Stead Life to close the gap. https://t.co/qkMgS35lOT

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Carriers draw the family-history line differently. Send me your history and I’ll tell you which likely credit yours. Free.
https://t.co/LwhqF9JXwG
Stead Technologies, Inc. d/b/a Stead Insurance Solutions · Licensed NY Insurance Broker ��� Life, Accident & Health · Lic. No. 1994354

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Ruby et al., GENETICS (2018): heritability of lifespan “no more than seven percent” after correcting for people choosing partners like themselves. https://t.co/jivSyqJZ4g

Family history as a class criterion (Society of Actuaries): https://t.co/tN6EZR850l

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Myth: you’ll live about as long as your parents did.

A study of over 400 million people in family trees put the heritability of lifespan at no more than 7%.

Life insurers still ask how your parents died. And that one answer can cap your class.

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

If someone in your family died with a policy you can’t find, New York will search for it. Free, and open to executors and immediate family.

DFS Lost Policy Finder: https://t.co/4sfbl7QzGS

The 2013 investigation: https://t.co/zfR2k8Ba9m

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Some life insurers had the government’s list of people who had died.

They used it to stop paying annuities.

They didn’t use it to check whether a life insurance claim was owed.

New York’s 2013 investigation turned up more than $1.1 billion in unpaid benefits nationwide.

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Your risk of dying in a given year, roughly, compared with age 30:

30 → 1x
38 → 2x
46 → 4x
54 → 8x
62 → 16x
70 → 32x

The man who found this pattern, in 1825, wasn’t a doctor. He was an actuary.
Life insurance has been priced on curves like it ever since.

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Send me your policy and labs. I’ll tell you which class your labs support and which carriers likely credit them. Free.
https://t.co/2Z5mHS3sv4
Stead Technologies, Inc. d/b/a Stead Insurance Solutions · Licensed NY Insurance Broker — Life, Accident & Health · Lic. No. 1994354

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

What happens if you outlive your life insurance?

Many older permanent policies mature between 95 and 100. Reach it and the contract ends: the cash value is paid out, maybe taxed, and the death benefit is gone.

They were priced on tables that didn’t expect you to get there.

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Send me your labs and history. I’ll tell you which class they support and which carriers would likely credit them. Free.
https://t.co/s4jLbWBuJ8
Stead Technologies, Inc. d/b/a Stead Insurance Solutions · Licensed NY Insurance Broker — Life, Accident & Health · Lic. No. 1994354

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

People are about 14% more likely to die on their birthday than on an average day.

Insurers don’t price the day. They price the age.

Every birthday moves you one row down their table.

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Source: Ajdacic-Gross, “Death has a preference for birthdays,” Annals of Epidemiology (2012). Over two million deaths across 40 years; 13.8% more deaths on birthdays. Coverage: https://t.co/wstVbN7zFg

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Sources: NASA on the comet https://t.co/OtlOwNPmMn and Halley’s 1693 paper, “An Estimate of the Degrees of the Mortality of Mankind” https://t.co/Q7ETyHQAxn

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Halley’s Comet is named after the man who predicted its return.

He also did the math your life insurance is built on.

In 1693, Edmond Halley took one city’s birth and death records and counted how many people survive to each age. Then he used it to price annuities.

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Send us your labs and history. I’ll tell you which class they support and which carriers would likely credit them. Free.
https://t.co/O4oFba1GNm
Stead Technologies, Inc. d/b/a Stead Insurance Solutions · Licensed NY Insurance Broker — Life, Accident & Health · Lic. No. 1994354

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

In 1965, a lawyer agreed to pay a 90-year-old woman 2,500 francs a month for the rest of her life. In return, he’d get her apartment.

She lived to 122. He died first, 30 years in. His widow kept paying.

He priced her lifespan on her age alone. Insurers price yours on far more.

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

The woman was Jeanne Calment, the oldest person on record. By the time he died, the lawyer, André-François Raffray, had paid more than twice the apartment’s value.
https://t.co/GT6QMWHlSH
https://t.co/d8alhE8s9z

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Send us your labs and history. I’ll tell you which class they support and which carriers would likely credit them. Free.
https://t.co/BXxt9S9BAu
Stead Technologies, Inc. d/b/a Stead Insurance Solutions · Licensed NY Insurance Broker — Life, Accident & Health · Lic. No. 1994354

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

There’s a database life insurers check before they make an offer.

It’s called MIB. If you’ve applied for individually underwritten life or health coverage in the last seven years, you may have a file.

You’re allowed to see it. Free, once a year.

Read it before you apply.

[Stead Life @SteadLifeHQ]

Request yours from MIB here. If you don’t have a file, they’ll tell you that too.
https://t.co/f3sQnlLFiJ