Video: Non-Clinical Career Opportunities for Physicians in Life Insurance

December 15, 2025

Edited Transcript from SEAK’s 2025 Virtual Non-Clinical Careers for Physicians Program

Moderator: Our next talk is going to be on [non-clinical] opportunities in the life insurance industry, and we’re very, very pleased to have Dr. Michael Wetzel as our presenter. Dr. Wetzel is the chief medical director for Equitable Financial. Prior to working at Equitable, Dr. Wetzel was a Vice President, Medical Director with Prudential and an Assistant Vice President, Associate Medical Director with The Hartford. He is board certified in family medicine and insurance medicine. Dr. Wetzel earned his BS from Penn State and his MD From Thomas Jefferson Medical College. So a warm welcome and thanks to Dr. Michael Wetzel.

Dr. Wetzel: Thank you. So today, I’m going to talk to you about what it’s like to be a what a career is like as a life insurance medical director.

First, I just want to have a disclaimer that I’m going to talk to you about my personal story of what my experience has been as a life insurance medical director. I’m not here as [a] representative of my company.

So today we’re going to talk about the process of underwriting.

I’m going to contrast clinical versus insurance medicine.

Explain how to develop your career as a life insurance medical director.

Spend a little bit of time. What do I do? What is my day like?

What can you expect as a life insurance medical director. And if this is something you’re interested in, how can you enter the field?

A little bit of background about me. I am family physician. I was in private practice for years. During this time I had very limited knowledge of life insurance.

I knew I had a group term policy. I knew that if I died someone was going to get some money. I know if I left my clinic I [would] no longer have that life insurance policy.

So my understanding of life insurance was very, very limited. I did not know about the different products, the different policies, the different ratings depending upon a person’s history. I didn’t even know medical directors [in life insurance] existed. I did not know that life insurance companies had physicians on staff, but one day I got a letter from The Hartford, asking if I’d like to be a medical director of a life insurance company, and I thought to myself, I have no idea what that is.

But I went in. I was curious about it. If there’s something else I could do besides seeing patients, and was really was taken aback by how interesting the job [as a life insurance medical director] sounded. So I made the leap and entered insurance medicine years ago.

What is insurance medicine?

It’s an administrative job working for life insurance Company as an underwriter consultant. Our main function [as a life insurance medical director] is to consult for the underwriters.

We [as life insurance medical directors] assess an applicant’s expected mortality. We do some review of claims. But the [life insurance] medical director is the authority for medical knowledge for the company – our expertise is medicine. Some medical directors are also involved with disability and long-term care policies, although I have not had that experience.

What it is not is denying claims. It’s not pre-authorizing treatments. It’s not selling insurance products. And it’s not Utilization Review.

Well, who are we? Typically a life insurance medical director is a physician. You need to have a medical license in good standing [and] need to maintain your board certification.

Most [life insurance] medical directors have a background in primary care, but there are other specialties represented, such as cardiology, pulmonology, and neurology. Some are some nurse practitioners, physician assistants and nurses.

It’s a process that involves assessing risk and taking on financial risk in exchange for a fee.

And there’s multiple components to the underwriting. There’s the medical history. What’s the person’s medical history like? Do they have significant diseases? What is their driving history? Have they had speeding tickets, motor vehicle accidents?

Have they had any legal issues, felony convictions?

What’s their financial situation? Can they afford the policy they’re asking for? And can they justify the amount of coverage that they’re requesting?

Do they live or travel in a foreign country? And if so, what countries are involved in that?

And do they have a high-risk occupation? Are they professional race car driver or a high risk vocation? Have they recently started hot air ballooning? So these are all the things that an underwriter needs to take into account.

The good news is as a medical director the only thing we need to worry about is, we’re trying to avoid is anti-selection. That’s of our purposes.

What is anti-selection?

Anti-selection is when an applicant for life insurance knows something relevant to their mortality risk that they do not share with the insurance company.

As an extreme say, a person goes to the physician, and the physician diagnoses them with a terminal illness.

That person could then go, well, you know I should get some life insurance and not share that information with the company. That is anti selection. That’s an extreme example. But that’s what we are trying to avoid.

There’s a big difference between a clinical medicine and insurance medicine. We look at things very differently in clinical medicine. The physician evaluates them, diagnoses them with something, starts treatment, may order some more tests, and the person comes back, and it’s a continuous process. Maybe the person’s not getting better. So the physician rethinks what the diagnosis is, orders additional tests, changes the medication, so they have the benefit of time being able to change their mind. Being able to vary things in insurance medicine. We do not have that.

We are given information at this point in time and that’s all we can use to assess the person.

We can’t order additional tests. We can’t send them to a consultant. We have to work with what we are given.

We need to understand the risk, make a decision and put out an offer. Once that offer is accepted by the applicant, it’s done. There’s no change that could be made to that.

If we get more information later on, something changes, we can’t take back the policy. We can’t change the premium amount. We can’t make any changes at all.

For instance, in clinical medicine a person comes in. They have a CAT scan for a reason and they find an incidental pulmonary nodule.

They may be at low risk, or the physician says, come back in a year. Let’s repeat the CAT scan and see if there’s been any change. In insurance medicine, if I’m looking at that CAT scan, and I decide to not take action on it, to ignore it, to assume that it’s nothing to worry about. And I issue the policy the next year, when that person has the follow-up CAT scan. If the nodule has enlarged, their physician will send them to a cardiothoracic surgeon, maybe we should biopsy this we need to look at this further. My policy is out there. There’s nothing I can do with that. I made a decision, and that decision has to stand.

It is expected that you do not know what you’re doing your 1st day [as a life insurance medical director]. I remember my 1st day as a medical director coming in, sitting at my desk, turning on my computer, signing on, sitting there thinking, “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.”

The good news is, every current medical director has been in that position. So you’re not expected to know what to do your 1st day. This is not typical medicine where you’re diagnosing, treating. We do not doing that. We’re assessing mortality. So it’s on the job training.

There’s no courses to take to prepare you for this.

Typically, the way it works is your 1st day [as a life insurance medical director] you will start to get cases.

You will review the applications. You’ll come up with a decision. You then meet with one of the other [life insurance] medical directors and review the case and you learn that way. So it’s a very steep learning curve. After several months, when you start to show some understanding and competence, the chief medical director might say, you seem to have a good understanding here. You don’t have to send every case to another medical director.

If, as long as the policy is, say, less than [so many dollars] if it’s less than [so many dollars] and you’re comfortable with it, you can send it directly back to the underwriter without reviewing it.

You always can still talk to a medical director if you weren’t sure. But if you feel comfortable, go ahead and send it back to the underwriter then over time that policy amount will increase. And eventually you’ll get to the point where you do not have any restrictions.

That’s about a year process to get to that point.

So there’s a lot of learning.

There are some certifications to get along the way to help your career development to prove to your company that you are devoted to this.

One of them is a diploma of Board of Insurance Medicine, to become board certified in insurance medicine.

Now do be aware, as a [life insurance] medical director, you, there’s limited opportunity for advancement.

I was hired as a medical director. I then was recruited for another company to be the chief medical director. So I’m over the other medical directors.

Years ago, I would say there was no opportunity for advancement, but that I have been proven wrong. I do know of medical directors who have gone on to become the chief underwriter. So that’s the person of the entire underwriting department. The one person that I know is a good friend of mine. He works for an insurance company. He was groomed by his company. They had him get an MBA. And he was eventually put into that position.

The other person is not your typical physician. He has multiple degrees. Besides his MD, he’s also very much into data analytics to computers. So he had some unique background.

But overall, most [life insurance] medical directors stay as a [life insurance] medical director.

So what’s my day like [as a life insurance medical director]? We review the applications. But there’s other components. What we do, I may review claims. If a person dies within [so many] years of the policy being placed, those policies are reviewed. The person reviewing them may have some questions. Did the underwriter miss something? Was the person dishonest with us, and I may be asked to comment on that. We get involved in projects. Companies right now are really pushing automated programs to increase underwriter efficiency underwriters get a lot of information for medical. They may get years of prescription data. They may get years of lab tests. They get all these different medical records.

A lot of this company is trying to automate. So I am involved in projects where I can automate the prescription database where I only flag certain prescriptions that need to be reviewed. If there’s nothing significant on the prescription database the program says that does not need to go to the underwriter that it can be approved. So [these are] automated programs that are being developed.

There’s also guidelines for the underwriters to use to assess people’s medical history.

What is the risk of these diseases, syndromes, cancers, all those things we call impairments. And so what are the impairments? Have there been improvements in medicine recently that make the impairment less significant as far as mortality?

And then education.

So the application review. Why would an application come to us? Underwriters can handle most of the information on their own? They are well trained, they have good resources, they can usually just handle the case without involving a [life insurance] medical director, so we do not get involved. In every case companies will have mandatory requirements. A company may say, if this applicant is over the age of [x] because older people tend to have more complicated medical history, we worry about frailty. Therefore, after the underwriter reviews the case and comes to a decision, [they] send it to the medical director. To make sure the medical director agrees.

My company has a face amount, restriction. If the policy is from more than million dollars after the underwriter makes an assessment and makes a decision, it gets sent to a medical director for us to review all the information, to make sure the underwriter didn’t miss anything and came to a proper conclusion. So each company has its own specifications on the mandatory use.

There’s other reasons. An underwriter may send us a case. The impairment may not be in the manual. This may or cannot cover every disease, everything out there. So there may be something that’s very rare, and the underwriter needs to get a better understanding. Are there mortality implications with this medical history?

The person may have a very complicated medical history, multiple impairments and writers wondering how are all these things fitting together. Does one thing make another thing worse? Or are they similar? There’s a lot of MRIs, CAT scans. There’s always these funny little things that will be mentioned by the radiologist that the underwriter doesn’t know what it means. We’ll send it in EKGs need to be evaluated. If the underwriter can’t interpreting EKG, we’ll send it in to have it interpreted by the [life insurance] medical director.

There may be conflicting history – the underwriter may get multiple medical records from different physicians and the medical history, the diagnoses, they’re not aligning. And so the underwriter might send it and say what seems to be the true diagnosis here. Can you help me figure out what is the correct diagnosis?

And there’s also the unadmitted history. The applicant didn’t admit any history. And now the underwriter’s coming across some prescriptions, that means that there could be something more going on. What could these prescriptions be used for?

What are the resources a [life insurance] medical director uses? Well, there’s reinsurance manuals. So I work for a direct insurance company. That means my company sells policies through its advisors and agents directly to applicants.

A reinsurance company does not do that. They work with the direct company.

If we have a policy, say, there’s an applicant who is applying for million dollars of life insurance. My company does not want to put million dollars on its books, because if that person dies, that’s a huge hit to the bottom line.

So my company may say we’ll take [1] million, and then we’ll send [x] million to different reinsurance companies and those reinsurance companies now back up the Direct Insurance Company.

So those reinsurance companies all have manuals that list the impairments and how to rate those. I’ll go over what the ratings mean in a few minutes. But how the underwriter should assess those, and also helps us to assess it.

There’s a Journal of Insurance Medicine. This is a journal of Insurance Medical directors. So we are the ones who run this journal. This is ours, and these articles in here are specific to mortality. So the Journal of Insurance Medicine is tapered specifically for Life Insurance Medical Directors. These articles are for us.

I live in Up-To-Date. Those unusual things that underwriters come and ask me about those rare syndromes, those rare diseases I may not have heard of that since medical school I go into Up To Tate to try to research it and try to figure out. Are there mortality implications to what this disease is? [We also use] Pubmed.

Me and the other [life insurance] medical directors frequently call each other and run cases by each other. But we’re not limited to just talking to people in our company.

We’re a small group of physicians in the United States, and we work together, and we support each other, so I may call a cardiologist at another company. Now that cardiologist can’t tell me for proprietary reasons specifically what they would do, but they could educate me on what this is and what the mortality implications are.

And this is the best part of the job. In my opinion, that’s the education. I love teaching. I always say, you know, as a physician I like teaching, but my patients were not the best students. They really didn’t want to hear the risk of smoking, how they needed to lose weight.

Underwriters want to learn. They like the education, they want it. So we do formal presentations. Once a month we’ll meet with underwriters and talk about a topic that they have either requested they wanted more information on, or we, as medical directors may see that the underwriters seem to be struggling with a certain impairment or a certain lab finding or something. We’ll spend some time going over that. Companies will hire inexperienced underwriters who have no medical knowledge and we, as [life insurance] medical directors, have a curriculum to help educate them in the medical part of underwriting.

I do rounds every day [as a life insurance medical director]. I used to do it when I was in the office after lunch, walk around to talk to the other underwriters who are in the office see if they had any questions. Were there cases they wanted to discuss? We are now all remote. So every day at one o’clock we have a video conference that’s optional for the underwriters to come to, and we’ll sit and talk about different cases or different questions that they have. I am available all the time when I’m at work. So the underwriter may email me may, call me, or may send me a direct message but I’m not limited to the company.

We again want to share our knowledge to the industry. So I have gone to industry meetings. I have gone to those and given presentations.

And now my company is using me. Fortunately for our employees, not just for the underwriters. During COVID I was front and center in helping the company handle the going remote, educating the employees. I did a lot of videos. I did a lot of personal meetings trying to explain what’s going on – trying to remove the misinformation that was out there and my company is also focused on wellness. So I am asked every once in a while to give a talk to the employees on different topics. February is heart health month. So every February I give a talk on heart disease or hypertension.

I recently was asked to give a presentation on the new obesity drugs and the risk of obesity.

And the fun part is some of the education I do is [that it is] a component of an underwriter getting promoted. It’s very fun to see people advancing their careers in the company. I have taught several groups of underwriters how to interpret a normal EKG, how to tell if EKG is normal or abnormal, if they determine it’s normal, they don’t need to send it in for review. I’ve taught them to do that. That’s a component of them getting a promotion, having been able to obtain that.

So let’s talk about a little bit about mortality. What am I talking about here?

Historically insurance companies have asked applicants to get an EKG, so you apply for insurance, and a nurse goes out to the home, takes blood, gets a urine sample, and also gets an EKG.

Well, people don’t like that. They don’t want to take their shirt off for this stranger, and also the quality tended to be poor. The paramedic would either put the leads on incorrectly [or it was] calibrated incorrectly. We’re getting a copy of it, and it’s very difficult to see. So companies have moved to just ordering a [test].

Now, I know that seems very odd, because you don’t typically get that just routinely on patients. But we do that in insurance medicine, because it’s been shown to reflect all cause mortality.

So one is a hundred percent mortality. If you have a hundred percent mortality, you have expected mortality that’s what’s expected for someone that age.

If you have a greater than one, then you have increased mortality.

Now this is a sample rating table. Every company has their own ratings. This is just an example. But here you can see standards. [Applicants for life insurance] will have preferred classes if they think that this person has improved mortality, better than expected mortality, and then these are all the ratings for worse than expected mortality.

Now, this is a talk I give to underwriters, because frequently there’s a problem where the person’s physician has said, everything’s okay, whatever the finding was, the lab was is no big deal. But now the underwriter is assessing it, or the Medical director of the Life Insurance Company is saying, there is something here. There is increased mortality. There is something negative that we need to take action on, and the applicant doesn’t understand that. And the underwriter has to be able to explain that to the applicant’s agent.

So let’s take a look at quick cases. This is a [x] year old male his lab history. We found an albumin of [y].

Now, as a clinical physician, I don’t even think that would have been flagged abnormal on my labs, I would have moved on without even looking at that. But in this case the case was declined by the underwriter. Because of that finding.

Well, the client replied to the agent, saying, wait, I was told all my labs are okay, and no further testing was indicated clinically. I believe that’s correct.

Now, when you look at studies, they focus on albumin as a predictor for hospitalized patients, critical care post-OP patients who’s more likely to be rehospitalized. That’s what the clinical studies are focused on.

Now there’s life insurance articles dating back to that look at albumin as a predictor of mortality. And here’s of those studies. Both of them are in that journal of insurance medicine that I was talking about that show. There’s increased mortality associated with serum albumin.

So here’s of the mortality pages here, and you can see the mortality. Here’s expected mortality the %.

But look as the mortality goes up. So once the albumin goes below there’s significantly increased mortality.

And here it is in a graph form. Now this is a little backwards, because high albumin is over on the left. Low albumin is over on the right. Here’s the blue line is the albumin of and here’s our guy here with his albumin of significant increase in mortality.

Now, here’s a [x] year old male height and weight. Blood pressure is good. No past medical history, hasn’t been seen in a physician for greater than years. That’s not unusual. In a [x] year old male.

We get the insurance labs. His total [cholesterol is x]. In clinical medicine, you think that’s pretty good. This guy’s doing well.

Well. The underwriter took adverse action for low total cholesterol and the iterator then was given a reply from the agent.

Mister Crestor is an active young man. We play tennis every weekend, and he does not consume alcohol. He is conscientious about his diet and health. He should get your best rate class due to his low risk for heart disease.

Well, let’s take a look at some studies. This is a study that shows mortality by cholesterol. Now this is both genders together, and this is split up by men and women and you can see here it start at expected mortality of one.

As the cholesterol goes up, no one is surprised, mortality goes up.

But look what happens as the cholesterol goes down and the mortality goes up.

This is broken up by age. And this is our guy right here.

He’s between and years of age. He has [increased] mortality for that low cholesterol and you think that just doesn’t make sense. Well, let’s look at it a little closer.

Here’s a graph that shows all cause mortality. This person died just died doesn’t matter what they died from. They died as you can see.

Here’s the one the % expected mortality, and as the cholesterol goes up, the mortality goes up.

But look at the significant increase in mortality as the cholesterol goes down.

Now we’ll jump to [this] graph. This is cancer mortality. So mortality goes up a little bit as the cluster goes up, but goes up significantly as the cluster goes down.

Now this middle one here is cardiovascular disease.

So, as expected, the mortality goes up as the cholesterol goes up, and also, as expected, there really isn’t significant increase in cardiovascular mortality with low cholesterol. So the agent was right. This person does have low risk cardiovascular disease but what we care about is all cause mortality. We pay out the policy, no matter what the person dies from. So our focus is on all cause mortality, and there is increased all cause mortality. When people have low, total cholesterol. And I want to stress, this is when a person is not taking a statin.

These studies are on people who have low, total cholesterol not treated with a statin or medication.

So what to expect as a medical director?

Well, it’s a good work-life balance [as a life insurance medical director]. This is me at work. Look at that casual. That’s not casual, Friday. That’s casual every day working at home. I used to be in the office. After COVID, 100% remote. So I now work at home. I work a straight [40 hour] work week. I work Monday through Friday. No holidays, weekends or evenings.

Remote is now common. My entire department is fully remote. The [life insurance] medical directors I work with are remote. So companies are more willing now with improvement in technology, the screen sharing, the video meetings to have new inexperienced medical directors work from home. You may be required to come into the office for an orientation to the main office for a few weeks or something, but there’s much more opportunities now for new medical directors to work remotely.

Well, how about the salary [for a physician as a life insurance medical director]?

This is a survey we took of our membership at an annual meeting a few years ago, and I’ll go through the breakdown. Now, there’s also the annual bonus that companies will offer, and that’s a percentage of your baseline salary.

What this is is based upon. How well did you do?

Did you do your job well? Did your job exceptionally well? And then how does your company do we work for financial companies? So how did the stock market do? How did our investments do? What was our claims? Experience? The company looks at all that at the end of the year, and then decides how well to fund the bonus target.

And so that’s anywhere from [x]% to [y] % for most medical directors.

That is not guaranteed. Again, that depends on how well the company has done and some companies offer long term incentives. This is to keep their medical directors. So I have a long term incentive program. At the end of the year I am given stock. It is in my name, but I cannot do anything with it. It vests a 3rd every year and then I can do something with it. So this is a way for companies to keep their medical directors from going to other companies.

And then we work for corporations. So it’s the typical benefits. Health insurance. HSA. Disability Insurance. Life insurance. 401(k) with a match.

Well, this sounds great, you may be thinking. I want part of this. Well, I will warn you right up front. It’s very competitive [to become a life insurance medical director]. It is a great career. We tend to not retire because it’s a fun job.

And so we, the people, tend to stay in this career. There’s not a lot of burnout.

So how can you get in [as a life insurance medical director]?

Learn about the industry and show interest. Because it’s competitive and not a lot of jobs become available, you’re not going to get a job in months. This might be a commitment of a few years.

Learn about the industry. Show interest. Try to make yourself stand out, attend industry conferences. There’s the American Academy of Insurance Medicine. That’s the United States based group of medical directors.

There’s the Midwest Medical Directors Association Meeting once a year. That’s a smaller, more intimate meeting. Usually one day – there’s less people there. So it’s easier to network. And then the American Council of Life Insurance, although that [deal with] more regulatory issues with life insurance.

There’s the basic mortality methodology course. There’s not really a course to take to prepare yourself for this job, but this is a course I would recommend taking to show that you truly have a commitment to getting into the industry.

So this is a course that’s offered at the beginning of our annual AIM meeting. AIM has an annual meeting every year the day before the regular meeting starts is a mortality course. Now, this is basically not what we do every day. So if you go, take this course and think, I don’t want to do this as a job. That is not what we do. The purpose of the course is to understand how those mortality tables that I showed earlier are created, how those are derived.

That is not what a [life insurance] medical director does every day, but it’s important to understand the history behind that and the science behind it. So that’s what the course will help, you understand. And again, if you take and pass that course as a test then when you apply for a job, you’re showing that you really, truly are committed to this. When you go to those meetings, network, get to know people. Brush up your LinkedIn profile. Recruiters use LinkedIn to find people. [The] company I worked for, we had an internal recruiter who found an inexperienced medical director straight out of practice to become a medical director. So really buff up your LinkedIn profile. I also would start to follow AIM. We have our own profile on LinkedIn, so follow AIM. When you meet medical directors at these industry meetings, follow them on LinkedIn also, so the recruiter can see that this person seems to be involved with insurance.

If you join AIM there’s a mentorship program. You will be hooked up with a [life insurance] medical director who has experience and will help you get a better understanding of what we do, and will also help you navigate the interviewing the finding job availability. I’ve had several Mentees. I had one mentee when I was in the office, come in and spend a day with me, working with me, going to meetings with me. I’ve had other mentees where I’ve screen shared for about an hour or so just showing them really what my day is like. How do I assess these cases? So the mentorship program is available.

I’ve talked about AIM, or the American Academy of Insurance Medicine. So we’re one of the oldest specialty organizations in the United States.

We provide educational and professional support for members. So we all work together. Although we work for different companies, we all share our knowledge at our annual meetings. We have medical directors lecturing us so we want to share our knowledge. We want to promote our industry.

We are recognized by the AMA, and we hold a seat in the [AMA] House of Delegates.

So in summary, what are the pros [of being a life insurance medical director]? It’s a mentally stimulating job.

I feel much more medically knowledgeable now than when I was in practice, because I have time to read about things when the underwriters come at me with that disease or impairment that I haven’t heard of, or that I haven’t heard of in years. I can actually sit down for half an hour to an hour and read about it. I couldn’t do that in practice.

I come, and often I feel like I’m back in medical school without the tests, and I’m getting paid to do it.

There’s good camaraderie. We are all good friends. The people I work with, we’ve become very, very close friends, but even the medical directors of other companies. Because there’s not a lot of us. We are good friends, we work together. We know each other very well – a very relaxed work environment. It’s a very, very good lifestyle.

What are the cons [of serving as a life insurance medical director?] As a practicing physician, when you write an order it gets done. When you tell a nurse to do something, it gets done. I don’t make decisions. The underwriter owns the case. They can take the information I give them and use it or not use it. It is their case. I do not have any control. I only advise. I only consult.

[When I was] a practicing physician, I was an owner of my clinic. I was guaranteed a job unless I did something really, really inappropriate. Now [as a life insurance medical director] I could lose my job.

When I joined Hartford, months after I joined and left clinical Medicine, Hartford announced it was selling off its life insurance business. So for years, while that process was being done, I didn’t know what to expect. I could have lost my job. It worked out well in that we were purchased by Prudential, which was a mile away, so I just had to drive a little different direction to get to work. So for me it worked out well, but I could have lost my job and also there’s little opportunity for advancement [as a life insurance medical director].

But overall I love this career. I say that decision I made years ago to go into insurance medicine was one of the best decisions that I have ever made. So I thank you for your time. I thank you for listening.

Moderator: Thank you so much. Dr. Wetzel. Wonderful talk!

Q: I’m gonna get my cholesterol up – just some questions, if you don’t mind indulging me, doctor. Fantastic talk. Networking. Obviously, it’s very important when you’re looking for a job. Are there any groups in LinkedIn that you would recommend for doctors interested in insurance medicine.

A: Yeah, I definitely would follow AIM and their profile. And when they share things I would look at who’s sharing and look at the other medical directors, and I would follow them also. That’s the big thing that I would do on LinkedIn, and also for networking. If you go to an industry meeting. Usually the 1st night, there’s a welcome reception and they’ll start the reception for new members or for people who are attending the meeting for the1st time, about a half hour early, I would definitely take advantage of that, that is, for new people to meet more experienced [life insurance] medical directors, so I would definitely take advantage of that. And network on that. Really get out there really meet people, talk to people. We’re all very friendly. We’re all very happy. We remember what it was like to be new. And so we’re very aware of that.

Q: So. You mentioned working on your LinkedIn profile. Any specific suggestions for the headline [ for those looking to become a life insurance medical director]? This is the new people that are looking to get into the job. Somebody’s a clinician like you. Any suggestions on how to optimize that, to make that stand out for either a recruiter, or if you’re applying for a job, saying, this person is serious [about becoming a life insurance medical director]. Any suggestions on that doctor?

A: Yeah, it’s a little tricky, particularly if you are currently working. You don’t want people to know that you’re thinking of changing careers. And so that’d be the risk of being too obvious with it. So I think it’s more of linking to people, following people, resharing posts that AIM does, or that other medical directors do. That won’t be so obvious to people. So if your friends say that they’re not going to think much about it, but it will really set off a recruiter that this person is actively involved in insurance medicine. They’re in clinical medicine. Therefore I would contact them to see if they’re interested in a job.

Q: Does AIM have a job board [for physicians looking to get into life insurance medicine].

A: Thank you for reminding of that. Yes. Now, there’s certain parts of the aim website that are only available to members. But we do have a public posting of [life insurance medicine] job opportunities. So companies will post on the AIM website jobs that is not restricted to members. Anyone can see that.

Now, the other thing. Thank you for reminding about this. The other thing that you can do on the AIM website is you can post your CV or your resume. Now that is restricted to only members. So you don’t need to worry that someone’s going to stumble across it that you work with. Only AIM members have access to that. So if you’re a member, you can submit your CV. That’ll get posted. If a company is looking for a medical director, they will use that as a resource.

Q: Do the HR people, whoever the hiring powers to be when they want to hire a new [life insurance] medical director, do they go to the existing medical directors and say, Hey, do you have anybody that you would suggest?

A: Absolutely. Yeah. So there’s different components to it, depending upon what they’re looking for. So if a company is looking for an experienced medical director. That’s definitely what they’re going to do. So we had a job opening a few years ago. I knew r who I wanted to hire, and so I was in charge of that. I didn’t rely on HR. I went talk to that person. She was interested, and we’re fortunate we’re able to hire her so, but for the inexperience. That’s where the recruiter is really going to use that LinkedIn profile.

But that’s also with the mentorship program, because we now know that there’s people who are actively interested as mentees. And so we, as medical directors, will talk to each other about, you know. Do you know anyone right now who would be a good fit. And so that would be another way to do that and then you got a letter from Hartford, where they kind of recruited you through the mail.

Q: Do you have? Do you have any sense as to why you stood out to them? Or was this like a mass mailing type thing.

A: You know I could never get a clear answer from the person who hired me. I think it was aimed at me. I was a little different in that I spent an afternoon a week working for my State’s Medical Board as a consultant, and so what I did was, I would review complaints about physicians, and I’d also review malpractice cases that had been settled or paid. And so it involved me reviewing a lot of medical records. It involved me coming to conclusion, and involved me making a recommendation to the board.

And if I had to do that in layman’s terms because they were not medical professionals.

And so that’s a lot of what I do. And so I’ve always been suspicious that someone knew that I was doing that as a consultant, and thought that would be a good fit, and that’s why they sent the letter to me. I was not aware that there was a mass mailing.

Q: You said that this is a small community. Everything’s relative. Of course, doctor, are we talking? There’s doctors that do this, a thousand doctors that do this any sense as to the size of the industry [for life insurance medical directors?]

A: It would be in the in the one hundreds.

So our annual meeting, Not all medical directors attend every meeting, because we all can’t go, because then there’s no one working in the office.

Q: How many life insurance companies are there? Do you know?

A: That I don’t know more than I thought.

And not all life insurance companies will have a full time medical Director. If they’re a smaller company, they may just have a medical director as a consultant that works one day a week.

Q: You mentioned that sometimes [life insurance] medical directors deal with long term care. What issue would they be asked?

A: We do some long term care, but mine is a rider on the life insurance policy. It’s not a standalone policy. So if you have a standalone policy unrelated to life insurance, that’s what I do not do. So the medical director is now assessing this differently because they’re not worried about mortality, they’re worried about what’s the risk of this person becoming disabled and requiring long term care, and the same thing with the disability. So the mindset is different. Now you focus more on not so much mortality. But what’s the risk of disability this person, rheumatoid arthritis, those types of things.

Q: And do you have to do you ever have to talk to the actual applicant themselves to get information and clarification.

A: I’ve never talked to an applicant. It’s been very rare. I have talked to the applicant’s physician. We try to avoid that, because it really needs to be the underwriter’s case. So typically, what I’ll do is spend some time with the underwriter, helping to explain why we’re taking the action that we’re taking, and make sure they have a good understanding, so they can accurately relay that information to the agent. Who then can explain it to the applicant but it’s been pretty rare, and when I have done it it’s gone really, really, well again, because I could explain to the clinical physician why I’m doing what I’m doing and make them understand that. Yes, as a practicing physician, I would have done exactly what you’re doing. I would have told my patient exactly what you’re telling your patient.

But I’m looking at this from a different view. And this is how I’m approaching it. And every time I’ve had that conversation. It’s going very well, and the physician has a better understanding of why I’m recommending what I’m recommending.

Q: What impresses you in a [job] interview with the with the young/new doctor trying to get into this field of [life insurance medicine]?

A: You really want to explain why you have an interest in [life insurance medicine]. Also be very careful. You don’t want to act like you’re trying to get away from something or run from something You really want to demonstrate that this really sounds like an interesting career, because it is a fun career. You want to really present that this is something you’ve heard about. It’s something you’re excited about, and it’s something you’re committed to and that you understand that there’s gonna be a time period before you are up and running. And you’re okay with that. But that it just sounds like a new challenge. It’s a great challenge. And it’s a fun job. And that’s really what you want to come across is that this is what you’ve heard, and this is why you’re excited about it.

Q: And the last question, [as a life insurance medical director] can you still practice very part time, one half shift a month, or something like that? And is it your experience that an insurance company would generally encourage that or discourage that.

A: That’s a great question. Ha! Once I left practice, I was a hundred percent out of practice. Some companies will have a person work a half a day a week. There’s a lot of variability. I do know some medical directors who just wanted to keep their feet wet to kind of keep in the practice and not lose their skills, so they may volunteer at a clinic. I know one medical director who went back to his clinic an afternoon a month just to stay involved. So there’s a lot of variability and companies may be open to different ways of doing that some companies encourage it. There’s a lot of variation in that now. I know some physicians have been afraid to take the leap again. You know I took the leap. I want a hundred percent. All in. Some physicians are not really sure they want to do that may want to see what this is like before they do that, so they may start part time as a [life insurance] medical director, and continue part time as a practicing physician.

Q: Do you have any regrets, Dr. Wetzel [in becoming a life insurance medical director]?

A: Not one. [Becoming a life insurance medical director] is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I have so much fun. It’s the people I work with are fun, not only the [life insurance] medical directors, but the underwriters. It’s a very pleasant experience. I’m sitting here in my house. It’s great.

Moderator: Thank you very, very much for your time. Great talk, thanks again.

Dr. Wetzel: Thank you.