Life Insurance Rates for Smokers: "Puff Your Way to a Life Insurance"

Smoking cigarette can cost you so much money in an amount you cannot even imagine. Cigarettes are not free of course, so you spend almost $5 a day to sustain your one pack a day vice. That's $35 in a week, $140 a month and an astounding $1680 a year. If you've been smoking for almost 20 years, you've already spent $33600 just for something that will just kill you.

We all know that smoking cigarette has its bad effects to ones health. The more you get sick, the more medical bills for you. More medical bills for you mean more evidence that you indeed have a risky life to insure.

Can You Hide Smoking From Life Insurance Companies?

Life Insurance companies examine and determine your overall health before they approve your insurance application and become one of the insured. Insuring life is a risky business because these companies accept certain payments called premiums and in return require them to pay big amounts in case a person insured by them dies. Upon application, a life insurance company will ask you whether you have smoked any tobacco product for the last twelve months or so. They do this because they classify those who apply whether they are healthy or not; whether they are more prone of being sick; and whether they are more of a liability than an asset. The greater risk of you getting hospitalized means the greater possibility for them paying your medical bills (which they do not want to happen because they are a business).

Insurance companies classify those insured as "Super Preferred", "Preferred Plus", "Standard", "Preferred No Nicotine" and "Preferred, Nicotine". When you are a smoker, most probably you'll end up being classified as a "Preferred, Nicotine" or worse your application to the life insurance company will be rejected. When you are classified as a "Preferred Nicotine", it only means that you are required to pay higher premiums. This means that it will take you so much money just to secure your life.

One third of the male global population smokes and every eight seconds someone dies from tobacco. This only means one thing, that more and more people are putting their own lives at risk. What if you are no longer a smoker anyway and you devoted yourself to stop? What if you really needed a life insurance policy and you haven't smoked for almost six months before your application, can you just falsify your application and lie that you didn't smoke? Well, think twice.

You can be charged with insurance fraud and your life insurance company can even question your membership due to the concealment of the true status of your health. They can just leave you dying when you needed them the most if they found out that you indeed falsified your application.

What Can I Do to Lower Life Insurance Premium Rates

So what's the bottom line? Try to stop smoking as this will be the best remedy. If you can't, lessen it. Smoking not only creates a gaping hole in your pocket, it also slims your chance of getting a good life insurance policy.