Life Insurance - The Basics of How the Cost is Affected by Your Lifestyle and Medical History

Life insurance premiums are worked out in a very scientific way, using statistics relating to tens of thousands of people and how they lived and died. What are the major factors used to determine the cost of your life insurance?

Age Your age at the time you apply is clearly important since (everything else being equal) you are more likely to die within an insured period the older you are.

Health Insurance companies will be interested in any existing medical conditions that you have. These might either increase your premiums or render you ineligible for the insurance.

Family History If you have a family history of heart disease or other major illness then this is going to increase the cost of your premiums.

Occupation Strange though it may seem, there are statistics that show quite large differences in death rates between people in different occupations.

Diet and Exercise The insurance company will be interested in whether you eat healthily and exercise. The best way of measuring this is by requesting your height and weight measurements.

Smoking and Drinking Smoking is the largest cause of preventable death and expect your premiums to increase dramatically if you have smoked in the 12 months before applying for your life insurance. Drinking to excess is another frequent cause of health problems so the insurance company will want to know whether you over-indulge in alcohol.

High Risk Leisure If you fly your own plane or go rock climbing regularly then expect your premiums to increase.

How can you change things to bring down your premiums

Obviously there is nothing that you can do about your age! If you have any health issues (either yourself or in your family history) make sure that you present them in the best possible way. Get all the facts as it will look a lot better if you can say that your Father died of cancer when he was 86 than just saying that he died of cancer. Investigate whether altering the way you describe what you do can reduce your premiums. Look at all the factors that are under your control (weight, smoking/drinking, risks) and consider whether you can change any of them. It might be worth getting a term insurance policy for a short period (which will be cheaper) whilst you change some of these factors.

Tags: Life Insurance, life insurance premiums, life insurance risk factors