MIB what is it?
It’s pretty common that people don’t know the first thing about the Medical Insurance Bureau. You may have heard this name in passing but do you have any idea what you need to know about the Medical Insurance Bureau (MIB), or why you would need to know about this body at all?
The MIB works on behalf of a variety of different insurance companies as an overseeing underwriter of sorts. When you apply for life insurance, long term disability or even health insurance, for instance, the MIB will assess your application and determine whether or not you are a low, medium or high risk to the insurance company that is considering providing you with coverage. Essentially, the bureau goes over applications with a fine-toothed comb to find any areas in which the applicant omitted information or perhaps even tried to misrepresent information about themselves, and passes this information on to the insurance company.
But this isn’t the only thing the MIB does. The MIB has a database where they store confidential information on everything from applicants’ medical histories to their hobbies. By keeping these files, the MIB is not only in a better position to assess an applicant’s risk level, but they can also let other insurance companies know when a person has applied for more than one insurance policy.
While the information the MIB receives is heavily protected, it can include details as personal as doctor’s notes on and assessments of your health. The insurance companies who seek out the MIB’s services do consider the MIB’s findings in their decision as to whether to approve or reject an application, but theirs is not the only opinion or information the insurance companies use when making their decisions.
It’s also important to note that not every person’s life or health insurance application is sent to the MIB. It is only when an insurance company’s underwriting department finds that there is something worthy of further investigation that they pass an application on to the MIB. Really, it is only when an insurance company feels that some information you did or did not include on your application may have bearing on your level of risk as an insurance owner.
