Rising Life Insurance Rates – If you want low life insurance don’t even think about smoking occasionally!

Back in 2006 many life insurance providers raised premiums on customers they labeled as smokers. Most health insurance companies will now define you as a smoker if you admit to using any nicotine product including: cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, nicotine patches, nicotine gum, or nicotine lozenges, within the last 12 months.

Applications ask a series of questions that will classify you as a smoker or non-smoker.  You may be labeled as a smoker even if you do not regularly smoke.  Furthermore lying about your occasional or frequent use of nicotine products constitutes insurance fraud.  Smokers no matter how frequently they smoke are force to pay up.  Generally life insurance companies do not distinguish between light and heavy smokers.

Smoking cigarettes also causes health concerns such as high blood pressure and respiratory problems.  Having smoking related health issues will raise our life insurance payments even further. 

If we find ourselves just starting out smoking we might want to keep in mind that life insurance companies will charge us as much as four times as much for smoking.  Increased premiums can be justified according to the growing number of findings surrounding tobacco use. Even occasional smokers are said to be at risk for many types of cancer and diseases caused by smoking. The latest research suggests that there are approximately 4,000 chemicals released when smoking a cigarette, many of them are proven to be carcinogenic in any amount.

Increased life insurance rates should not come as a surprise as in North America, the governments are bearing down on just where and when people can smoke and even how people can sell and advertise tobacco products.  More and more businesses in Canada(including bars) are no longer allowed to permit smoking in their establishments and there are bylaws indicating that a fine will be issued for smoking within a posted distance from the doorway.