Lincoln Heritage Health Questions: What They Ask and Why It Matters

Does Lincoln Heritage Require a Medical Exam?

No. Lincoln Heritage does not require a medical exam for its Funeral Advantage burial insurance policy. There is no bloodwork, no urine sample, and no height and weight measurement.

Instead, you answer a short set of health questions on a one-page application. Coverage is issued based on how you answer those questions. This approach is called simplified issue underwriting.

Simplified issue sits between two other kinds of underwriting. Fully underwritten policies require an exam and lab work. Guaranteed issue policies ask no health questions at all but make everyone wait two years for full benefits.

Lincoln Heritage does not offer guaranteed acceptance coverage. You must answer the health questions and be approved. That means your answers matter — they are the only thing the decision rests on.

What Lincoln Heritage checks instead of an exam

Skipping the exam does not mean no one is looking. Two things happen behind the scenes.

First, the application includes a signed authorization letting Lincoln Heritage pull your prescription history from pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers. Coverage decisions are based on your answers along with a review of that prescription history.

Second, if you apply for more than $20,000 in coverage, Lincoln Heritage requires a phone interview with an underwriter. This is a conversation, not a physical — but the questions get more detailed.

One quirk works in some applicants’ favor. Lincoln Heritage does not use height and weight charts, so being overweight does not by itself hurt your application — an advantage over carriers that decline based on BMI.

How the application actually happens

You cannot buy this policy online. Lincoln Heritage sells only through licensed agents, by phone or in person.

The agent asks you the health questions and gathers your information. In most cases you find out whether you are approved within 10 to 15 minutes.

How Your Answers Decide Immediate vs. Modified Coverage

Your answers do not just get filed away. They sort you into one of three outcomes, and the sorting is mostly mechanical.

The application is built in two blocks. The first block holds two “uninsurable” questions. The second block holds nine “significant health condition” questions that look back two years.

Here is how the blocks route you:

The application states this plainly: if the answer to any significant health question is “yes,” your death benefit will be modified. There is no negotiation and no case-by-case review at that stage.

One thing to understand about final expense insurance underwriting: a two-year lookback means the question is about the last 24 months, not your whole life. A heart attack in 2009 is not a “yes” if you have had no treatment or medication for heart disease since.

Conditions that usually still qualify for immediate coverage

Many common senior health issues are simply not on the application. If it is not asked, it does not route you anywhere.

• High blood pressure. Not asked about at all, controlled or otherwise.
• Type 2 diabetes without complications. The application asks only about diabetes complications — amputation, diabetic coma, blindness, or kidney disorder. Diabetes managed with diet, pills, or insulin, with none of those complications, is a “no.”
• Asthma. The lung question specifically excludes asthma.
• Basal cell skin cancer. Specifically excluded from the cancer question.
• High cholesterol, arthritis, thyroid conditions. Not asked.
• Anything resolved and untreated for more than two years. Outside the lookback window.
• Being overweight. Lincoln Heritage uses no height and weight chart.

There is a catch worth knowing. Even when you answer every question “no,” your prescription history is still reviewed, and medications can suggest a condition you did not report. Some agents report applicants being routed to the modified plan based on what their medication list implies.

Conditions that typically trigger the modified plan

A “yes” to any of these, within the past two years, moves you to modified coverage:

That last one surprises people. A test you have already had, with results still pending, counts as a “yes.”

The modified plan is a real policy, but a different one. It carries a waiting period of two to three years, costs meaningfully more, and caps coverage at $15,000 rather than $35,000. If you die of natural causes during the waiting period, your family receives your premiums back plus interest — not the death benefit. Accidental death pays in full from day one.

If you land on the modified plan, that is a signal — not a verdict. Other carriers ask different questions and may approve the same person at full day-one coverage.

Can You Be Declined by Lincoln Heritage?

Yes. Lincoln Heritage does not offer guaranteed acceptance coverage, so a decline is possible.

Two questions on the application decide it. Answer “yes” to either one and no funeral insurance policy is offered — not the immediate plan, not the modified plan.

The two knockout questions cover:

1. HIV or AIDS, or a life expectancy of 12 months or less. A physician-diagnosed terminal illness falls here.
2. Currently bedridden, hospitalized, in a care facility, or receiving hospice care. Some versions of the application also list incarceration.

Note the word currently in the second question. It is about your situation today, not your history. Someone who was hospitalized last year and is now home answers “no.”

These two questions are the entire decline list. Everything else on the application routes to modified coverage rather than a denial — which is why Lincoln Heritage accepts many applicants that stricter carriers turn away.

If you answer “yes” to either knockout question, guaranteed issue life insurance is the path that remains open — it asks no health questions at all.

Should You Answer Honestly? Yes — Here’s What Happens If You Don’t

Yes. Answer every question honestly, even when a “no” would get you a better plan or a lower price.

The temptation is real. A “yes” on one question moves you from immediate coverage to the modified plan, with a waiting period and a higher premium. Shading one answer can look harmless in the moment.

It is not harmless. Here is why.

The first two years are different from every year after

Nearly every life insurance policy, including burial insurance, has a contestability period — usually two years from the policy’s issue date. This is not unique to Lincoln Heritage; it is standard across the industry.

During those two years, the insurer has the right to investigate a claim. After the two years pass, that right mostly goes away.

This is why the “claims paid in 24 hours” line deserves a second look. Only approved claims move that fast. A death in year one means records get pulled first, and that takes weeks or months.

What the investigation actually looks for

Lincoln Heritage requests the deceased’s medical records and checks them against the health questions on the original application.

If the records show a condition that existed before you applied — one that would have changed the decision — the claim is denied. Your family receives a refund of the premiums you paid, not the death benefit.

If the records confirm your answers were accurate, the claim is paid in full.

Your prescription history is not private here

This is the part most applicants miss. The application includes a signed authorization letting Lincoln Heritage pull your prescription records from any pharmacy or pharmacy benefit manager. That authorization stays valid for two years.

Medications tell a story. A blood thinner points toward heart or circulatory treatment. An inhaler prescribed alongside a COPD code points somewhere specific. You do not have to name the condition for the record to show it.

The application also carries a legal warning: knowingly presenting a false statement on an insurance application may be a criminal offense under state law.

Honest mistakes are not the same as lying

An insurer cannot deny a claim over any small error. To rescind a policy, it generally must prove the misstatement was material — meaning the truthful answer would have changed the decision, the price, or the outcome.

Forgetting a minor doctor visit, misremembering a date, or misunderstanding a medical term is not the same as concealing a cancer diagnosis. Insurers carry the burden of proof, and denials based on weak or immaterial claims are sometimes overturned.

That said, the way to protect your family is not to hope a dispute goes your way. It is to answer accurately the first time.

What to do if the honest answer routes you to modified

If a truthful “yes” lands you on the modified plan, that is information — not a dead end. Different carriers ask different questions with different lookback windows, and the same person is sometimes approved at full day-one coverage elsewhere.

An independent agent can shop your real health profile across multiple carriers. That way you are never tempted to shade an answer just to get a better offer from a single company.

The Health Questions Lincoln Heritage Asks

Lincoln Heritage’s entire health section fits on one side of one page. It is twelve questions, split into three groups that do three different jobs.

Understanding the groups matters more than memorizing the questions. Each group routes you somewhere different.

That is the whole health section. If a condition is not covered by one of those questions, Lincoln Heritage is not asking about it — though your prescription history still gets reviewed separately.

Terminal illness and current hospitalization questions

Two questions sit at the top of the application under the heading “uninsurable conditions.” These are the knockouts.

The first asks whether you have tested positive for HIV, been diagnosed with AIDS, or been given a life expectancy of twelve months or less by a doctor.

The second asks whether you are currently bedridden, hospitalized, living in a care facility, or receiving hospice care. Some versions of the application also include incarceration here.

The word “currently” is doing real work in that second question. It asks about today, not your history. A hospital stay two years ago that you have recovered from is a “no.”

Major organ and disease history

The next group of questions covers serious disease by body system. These do not disqualify you — they route you to the modified plan.

• Heart — heart attack, heart surgery, or congestive heart failure
• Circulatory — stroke, aneurysm, or being advised to have surgery to improve circulation
• Cancer — any cancer except basal cell skin cancer
• Lungs — COPD or emphysema, with asthma specifically excluded
• Liver and kidney — disease of either organ, or any organ transplant
• Brain and nerves — Alzheimer’s, dementia, organic brain syndrome, or ALS

Two more questions round out this group. One asks about alcohol or drug abuse. The other asks about complications of diabetes — amputation, diabetic coma, blindness, or kidney disorder.

Read that diabetes question carefully. It is not asking whether you have diabetes. It asks whether diabetes has caused one of those four specific complications.

A final question asks whether you have had, or been advised to have, a diagnostic test related to any condition above where the results have not come back yet. A pending test counts as a “yes.”

Lookback-window questions

Here is the detail that changes outcomes more than any other: the disease questions are not asking about your whole life.

Every question in the significant health conditions group is framed the same way — in the past two years, have you been diagnosed with, treated by a physician for, or taken medication for this condition?

The tobacco question uses a shorter window of twelve months.

This is why final expense insurance applicants with serious histories sometimes still qualify for immediate coverage. Cancer treated and finished in 2019, with no treatment or medication since, is a “no” — the event sits outside the window.

Two cautions. Ongoing medication keeps the clock running, so a daily prescription for a listed condition is a “yes” no matter how long ago the diagnosis was. And monitoring visits count as being treated by a physician.

Daily living and mobility questions

This section is here to answer a question people ask constantly — and the answer surprises most of them.

Lincoln Heritage does not ask about oxygen use, wheelchair use, walkers, or help with activities of daily living. Those questions are not on the application. Bathing, dressing, toileting, home health aides — none of it is asked.

Care setting is asked about, but only in the knockout question covered above, and only about your situation right now. Living in a nursing home or care facility today is a decline. Having an aide come to your house is not asked about at all.

This is an area where Lincoln Heritage is more forgiving than many competitors.

One caution applies. If you use oxygen because of COPD, the lung question captures the COPD. The oxygen itself is not the issue; the underlying condition is.