A recipe for success: it's time to choose known alternatives to costly and slow underwriting.

At this writing, I find myself in the midst of preparing for yet another jam session with senior management of a life insurer, now that their attention has been drawn to the Scylla and Charybdis of profitable underwriting: acquisition cost and turnaround time.

They were rightly appalled at the relics--passed off as worthy tools for measuring risk--that fitter their landscape.

A recent (and brilliantly crafted) editorial bemoaned shabby underwriting time service. Awash in verisimilitude, the authors argued it should not take until that other place freezes over to issue a policy.

Sixty-some chief underwriters affirmed 22 to 26 days as a credible representation of their prevailing median application-to-issue (under)achievement interval.

One asks in consternation: "How can underwriting take an average three to four weeks?"

Consider what passes for "risk selection resources" and see the pathogenic mechanisms begetting untenable costs and egregious delays.

* Clinical medicine has not screened with chest X-rays for 20 years; we ignore the paradox of exposing insurance seekers to ionizing radiation.

* Half a grand spent on a treadmill test is seven times the cost of a superior alternative readily accessible in days, not weeks. Of course, the customer will be denied the opportunity to perform like a caged hamster (as if earning coverage with perspiration).

* Blood screening has enormous value ... over age 40. So why the same deployment threshold for 20-year-olds as for gold watch recipients?

* Surely an unpublished internal study of insurance exams, undertaken by a gifted medical director, that found zero significant eye abnormalities had been reported by examiners in a cohort where such things should be frequent, was aberrational. Ah, if only it were so ...

* Experience teaches that 50% of medical records tracked down by underwriters at $60 a pop (that's just the sticker price!) contribute nothing.

How now?

A bumper sticker espied in traffic read "Question War!"

A 21st-century rule of thumb should read: "if it costs more than $50 or takes more than seven days, dissect it with a vengeance!"

When "they" tell you it must not be otherwise, question the reasoning and motives severely.

Resources at hand make cost-efficient, time-sensitive underwriting one conscious and enlightened interlude from realization. As in:

* Let teleinterviews triage risks before resorting to medical records.

* Pharmaceutical profiling has run its gauntlet of angst and nay-saying. Bottom line: Prescriptions reports are way too fast and far too good to be denied a place in your screening portfolio.

* Oral fluid is the proven antidote to blood testing under age 40.

* Time to resurrect the "fixed-site" paramedical? Prospects for higher quality and much-needed enhancements beckon.

* Some combination of readily accessible and thoroughly affordable blood tests will soon put the sword to treadmills and greatly diminish all electrocardiogram use.

Why would a consultant offer up a recipe for success ... in an essay?

Because the viability of underwriting and the credibility of this industry make any other course of action unconscionable,

Hank George, a Best's Review columnist, is the principal in his own consulting and training firm, Hank George Inc. He may be reached at [e-mail].