MIB helps ensure that companies can offer – and consumers can purchase – affordable life insurance protection.
As a member consortium who represents the leading life insurance companies in North America, MIB has protected applicants, insurers, and policyholders by providing unique underwriting risk assessment services to the life insurance industry for over 100 years.
Services in our Code Solutions portfolio are exclusively available to our member companies, and help them assess an individual applicant's risk and eligibility during the underwriting process for life, health, disability income, critical illness, and long-term care insurance. These services "alert" underwriters to potential errors, omissions or misrepresentations made on insurance applications that can affect underwriting decisions.
By doing so, MIB helps the life insurance industry protect against fraud, ensure an individual's premium rates appropriately match their risk, and keep the cost of life insurance affordable for consumers.
Applicant-Authorized Information Exchange
MIB manages a contributory database of underwriting information that is maintained by our member companies and referenced by them during the underwriting process. When you apply for insurance from a member carrier, they will ask your authorization to perform a check of our database. Once you give your permission:
The carrier will cross check the information you provide on your application against any information in your MIB Consumer File.
Should there be a discrepancy, the carrier will follow up with you to understand the reason.
Carriers are not enabled to make underwriting decisions based on your MIB Consumer File without further investigation.
As part of the underwriting process, member carriers will provide any information discovered of underwriting significance back to MIB to populate your Consumer File.
You will only have an MIB Consumer File if you applied for life insurance with a member carrier in the last 7 years, and information of underwriting significance is found during the application and/or underwriting process. This is true whether or not you actually purchase the insurance policy you applied for.
Pre-Notice and Authorization
To obtain your consent to search and report back to our database, MIB member companies must provide you with a document called the MIB Pre-Notice. This document notifies applicants that:
The member carrier may report back information concerning your medical conditions and avocations to the MIB database.
If you later apply for life or health insurance (or files a claim for benefits) with an MIB member company, MIB may supply that company with this information.
The Pre-Notice also provides the address to contact MIB to obtain a copy of your MIB Consumer File (referred to as "disclosure") and how to pursue a correction of an MIB Consumer File, if necessary.
Secure Codes
To protect your privacy, applicant information is shared and maintained in a coded format. MIB codes are proprietary, highly confidential, and can be thought of as a form of encrypting. Each code signifies a medical condition, hazardous vocation or other factor that can adversely affect the insurability of an applicant.
MIB's codes are based only on information that is collected by the member insurance company, with the applicant's authorization, during the course of underwriting. Additionally, MIB codes do NOT:
Indicate what action another member company took with respect to the application (approval, denial, approved with a substandard rating).
Represent a full medical record nor include complete details about a medical condition, avocation or other factor.
Include information from creditors about a person's payment history or creditworthiness.
Reflect any type of a scoring system.
In addition to using encryption codes to protect privacy, MIB implements and enforces robust security standards and policies that are designed to protect the security and confidentiality of any individually identifiable information in MIB's database.
Commitment to Accuracy & Privacy
MIB and our member companies are fully committed to ensuring that MIB Consumer Files contain only accurate, timely, verified and complete information. As a nationwide specialty consumer reporting agency under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), MIB provides US consumers with the rights, protections and privileges available under FCRA. In addition, MIB also provides substantially equivalent rights to Canadian consumers, as well as consumers who reside in the Caribbean region and have done business with an MIB member.
Consumers have the right to obtain a copy of their MIB Consumer File (if one exists), and MIB will provide one free of charge once per year. Upon review, if a consumer finds a discrepancy in their file, MIB offers an effective reinvestigation process in accordance with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Historically we have found our Consumer Files to be highly accurate, with only 1-2% requiring changes due to inaccurate or incomplete information. However, if you have received a copy of your MIB Consumer File and you feel that the information in it is inaccurate or incomplete, you may request a "reinvestigation."
(Provided free of charge, once per year)
Who is MIB?
