Critical Illness Insurance Cost Calculator Created

To help consumers understand the affordability of cancer insurance and critical illness insurance, an online calculator has been introduced by the American Association for Critical Illness Insurance.

"Cost is always a critical factor when consumers are considering a purchase and that's especially true with insurance products today," states Jesse Slome, director of the critical illness insurance organization.   "The Association's new cost calculator will appear at the very top of almost every page on our new website and provide instant costs for $10,000 of cancer insurance."

The critical illness insurance cost calculator merely requires the consumer enter their sex, age and whether they are a smoker or non-smoker.  "There is no personal information needed to immediately see the cost," Slome explains.  "The cost appears immediately and we don't ask or want to gather any personal information.  We merely are striving to show consumers how affordable this important coverage can be."

Slome noted that the decision to show the cost for $10,000 of cancer insurance was made to be most beneficial to the largest number of young adults.  "For millions of Americans between the ages of 35 and 55, cancer is the critical illness they are most likely to have prior to reaching age 65 to 70," Slome shares.   "The average critical illness insurance policy purchased today is around $15,000 in benefits, so the modest policy seemed to make the most sense.  Obviously, if someone wants more coverage, they can easily estimate what their potential cost might be."

The critical illness insurance cost calculator is designed to demonstrate the affordability of cancer insurance and encourage consumers to seek actual pricing for coverage options.   "When consumers hear they can purchase cancer insurance protection for the cost of one or two cups of coffee a month, they'll be interested enough to take the next steps to learn more,:" Slome predicts.

The calculator revealed that a male, age 45 who does not use tobacco could pay as little as $48 a year for $10,000 of cancer insurance.  A female, age 45 who uses tobacco would pay $108 yearly for the same level of insurance.  "I chose to show smoker and non-smoker rates because it shows the numbers most fairly," Slome adds.  "When rates are the same for both, the non-smokers are more or less subsidizing some of the added risk of insuring smokers."

To learn more and access the critical illness insurance cost calculator, visit the Association's website at www.criticalillnessinsuranceinfo.org.

Jesse Slome is founder and director of the American Association for Critical Illness Insurance, headquartered in Westlake Village, California.  Slome also heads up the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance as well as the American Association for Medicare Supplement Insurance.

Vitamin D Is Heart Healthy For Older Adults

An estimated 800,000 Americans will have a first heart attack according to data from the American Association for Critical Illness Insurance.  "The combined financial cost of heart attacks and strokes is over $225 billion," notes Jesse Slome, director.  "Most personal bankruptcies today are directly tied to medical and healthcare costs."

A new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Denver and Massachusetts General Hospital studied the association between vitamin D levels in the blood and the death rates of those 65 and older.  

Researchers found that older adults with insufficient levels of vitamin D die from heart disease at greater rates that those with adequate levels of the vitamin.  The results are published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

It's likely that more than one-third of older adults now have vitamin D levels associated with higher risks of death and few have levels associated with optimum survival noted the lead author on the study. 

The study noted that older adults are at high risk for vitamin D deficiency often because their skin has less exposure to the sun as a result of less time spent outdoors as well as the body's reduced ability to make vitamin D.

The study analyzed data from the National Center for Health Statistics that was of the 24 million older adults in the United States. Compared to those with optimal vitamin D status, those with low vitamin D levels were 3 times more likely to die from heart disease and 2.5 times more likely to die from any cause.

"Vitamin D has health effects that go beyond strong bones," one of the researchers explained. "It's likely that it makes a vital contribution to good health."

Declines In Cancer Deaths Not All Good News

A new study shows some improvement in cancer death rates.   Improvements in cancer screening and better treatments have resulted in the steady decline over the past three decades according to U.S. researchers. 

The scientists note that younger adults between ages 35 and 45 years old experienced the steepest declines in cancer death rates.  They noted that all age groups showed some improvement.  The findings of the study appear in the journal Cancer Research.

The news has both positive and negative implications some experts note.  Surviving cancer often results in an enormous financial toll on both the survivor and their family.  According to the American Association for Critical Illness Insurance the industry trade group, uncovered medical costs are a leading cause of personal bankruptcies in the United States.

While U.S. government estimates suggest there had been little improvement in cancer death rates throughout the 20th century, scientists noted the government reports did not tell the whole story.  Researchers used a different way of looking at cancer death rates that measured improvements in cancer deaths by age.

By comparison, government data tends to average all age groups together to produce a composite rate.

Because most cancer deaths occur in older Americans, the average was weighted toward experiences of older people.   Instead, the researchers looked at improvements in cancer deaths among groups of individuals born in five-year intervals starting in 1925.

Using this methodology, they found that everyone born since the 1930s has enjoyed a decreased risk of cancer death, at every age.  People in the youngest age group (between 35 and 45) had a greater than 25 percent decline per decade in cancer deaths.