What to Know About Life Insurance and Smoking

Life insurance and smokers

The life insurance plan that works for you depends on your health, habits, and lifestyle choices. If you are making risky decisions or negatively impacting your health, you are a risky client for life insurance companies to take on.

Therefore, it makes sense for companies to charge higher to provide insurance for smokers than those who have a healthier lifestyle and habits.

How Much Does Life Insurance Cost For Smokers?

There is no fixed pattern in price plans for nonsmokers and smokers. Each insurance company uses its own criteria for setting the bar for smokers. However, there's one clear pattern we can all see: life insurance for smokers tends to be much higher than for nonsmokers. 

The universal, whole, and term life insurance quotes for smokers start around 2-4% higher than non-smoker policies and can be much higher depending on the particular company's policies and the health condition of the smoker. 

Why Do Smokers Have Higher Life Insurance Plans?

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has declared cigarette smoking as the leading cause of death for preventable diseases. Every one in five deaths is caused by smoking-related health problems. 

In other words, insurance companies have to invest more time and effort in their contracts with smokers. This, in turn, puts an immense burden on life insurance resources, which is why they charge smokers higher insurance quotes.

Who Is Considered a Smoker?

The World Health Organization's Smoking and Tobacco Use Policy recognizes a smoker as someone who consumes any tobacco product, daily or occasionally. 

The organization further declares that a tobacco product is ''entirely or partly made of the leaf tobacco as raw material, which is manufactured to be used for smoking, sucking, chewing or snuffing."

These definitions strictly adhere to tobacco use and the deposition of tar on one's lungs as qualifications of being a smoker. However, this doesn't mean that life insurance companies have to stick to the same definition. 

Nicotine delivery and the consumption of other toxins and products that pollute your lungs and bloodstream are a part of the umbrella term ‘smoking.’ This includes the various ways and ingredients that induce an effect that is similar to that of tobacco smoking. For instance:

  • Vaping and e-cigarettes
  • Hookah
  • Bidis
  • Cigar
  • Nicotine replacement therapies such as patches, lozenges, gums, pouches, nasal sprays, and inhalers
  • Heated tobacco products
  • Pipes 
  • Dissolvable tobacco

These also have the same effects as regular tobacco consumption, which automatically qualifies them as smoking products. So, if you don't smoke tobacco but instead consume any of these, it probably still counts as conventional smoking for the purposes of getting a life insurance plan.

Are Marijuana Users Considered Smokers?

It can be tricky to draw a line between what does and doesn't constitute smoking. For example, if you ask an insurance agent, ‘Does chewing tobacco affect life insurance?’ some companies will say it does. Some others may essentially consider it harmless and have the same life insurance for smokeless tobacco users as they do for nonsmokers in general. It’s best to investigate these case by case.

Similarly, the research on marijuana consumption, including its various processing methods, health issues, and legal guidelines, are some of the many considerations that help insurance companies categorize its use as smoking, whether medical or recreational.

There are a few observations that offer some clarity regarding the effects of marijuana smoking in comparison with tobacco smoking, and they're especially helpful in figuring out how you become eligible for smokers life insurance:

  • The direct, unfiltered inhaling of marijuana smoke through a self-made joint delivers more smoke, containing at least four times more tar to the lungs in contrast to the equivalent weight of tobacco smoke.
  • Marijuana smokers typically take deeper puffs and hold the smoke for longer, which delivers more toxins and cancer-causing agents inside your body than tobacco smoke.
  • Commercially produced tobacco cigarettes hold more tobacco content than hand-rolled joints. Therefore, these tightly-wrapped products have a more intense, thick smoke than most marijuana joints.
  • On average, marijuana smoking is considered more intensive than tobacco smoking, which is why smokers often resort to smoking more tobacco in a day than marijuana smokers. This may alter the average tar deposit on the lungs of each type of smoker.

How to Find the Best Life Insurance for Smokers?

The various life insurance plans for smokers depend on each company's policies and the smoker's living conditions. While costs for smoker insurance rise with age and increased nicotine consumption, it is still possible to nab a plan that's both cheap and nicotine friendly. These companies spare occasional smokers and sometimes also exempt non-smoking tobacco consumption.

With that said, such plans aren't easy to come by. You can only get specific quotes if you shop around and get help from an independent insurance finder!

Do Insurance Companies Test for Nicotine?

Companies usually carry out a cotinine test and get a declaration form signed by smokers and nonsmokers when they sign the contract. However, since occasional smokers can easily escape cotinine detection, companies also factor in pharmaceutical and medical databases, social and professional profiles, and voice quality exams to weed out closeted smokers from nonsmokers.

What Happens if You Start or Quit Smoking After the Application?

If you start smoking after you've signed life insurance as a nonsmoker, then there's not much that your life insurance company can do to change the plan; you'll continue to pay less than smokers do. 

But if you quit smoking (quitting here refers to spending a year or more without smoking), you can ask your company for a plan reconsideration. One of the many benefits of quitting smoking in your 20's is that you can opt for a nonsmokers plan!

Conclusion

Although smokers do pay more for life insurance, you can find ways around higher pricing plans if your habit isn't harmful enough. If you're planning to quit smoking, you may also find companies offering insurance rewards and premiums to drop the habit!

Featured Image: Megapixl

If You Liked This Article Click To Share