Specialty Life Firm Raises $55 Million in Capital

A California company that organizes life insurance programs aimed at people in niche underwriting markets has raised $55 million in funding from a group of investors led by Greenspring Associates.

The company Hi.Q Inc., operates as Health IQ Insurance Services Inc.

Health IQ uses quizzes and other methods to identify applicants who may be better risks for life insurance and disability insurance than ordinary life insurers might think.

The company looks for people who are engaging in activities associated with good health, such as running and swimming, and for people with chronic diabetes, such as diabetes, who are doing a good job of managing their conditions.

The Screening Process

To screen people with diabetes, for example, Health IQ requires prospects to start by passing a general Health IQ quiz and a Diabetic IQ quiz.

The company also requires a prospect with diabetes to track physical activity with an app; to provide a race completion time from a race website; to attend a regular fitness class; or to verify having a healthy lifestyle some other way.

Before issuing a policy, the company also puts an applicant with diabetes through a standard underwriting process, and requires the applicant to go through a screening exam.

What Health IQ Is

Health IQ works with carriers such as Ameritas, Protective Life and SBLI to help the applicants who meet its underwriting standards get discounted rates.

From the perspective of the life insurers, Health IQ is a managing general agent that shares in some of the underwriting risk, through use of a captive reinsurer. The Health IQ captive reinsurer has agreed to make payments to the direct writers if mortality losses turn out to be higher than expected.

The company says it has helped its clients get $21 billion coverage, and that the amount of coverage it has arranged has tripled since 2017.