How excess weight and smoking affect your life insurance premium.

Your weight and some of your lifestyle choices are taken into account by insurance companies when categorizing you as a certain type of risk. This matters because such factors as your weight and habits affect your health to a great extent. For example, people who are overweight are more exposed to health problems such as stroke, cancer, osteoarthritis and congestive heart failure.

According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001 to 2004, approximately two-thirds of adults in the U.S. are overweight and about one-third are obese. Sadly, but if it goes on like that every citizen of the U.S. will be overweight in forty years time. This statistic becomes even worse if we take certain groups. For example, 80% of African-American women are overweight. Some 90% of Mexican-American men could be overweight in 25 years time. However, we'll probably never actually get to 100%. There is a hope that there will be those who resist gluttony and stay slim.

There is also a great problem of smoking. Heavy smokers who suffer from obesity are five times more likely to die young than non-smokers. That's why some companies double the rate if you're a smoker.

Life insurance companies have created a list of risk types. They categorize people according to their risk of dying. There are the following classes: super preferred, preferred, standard, etc. Super preferred are those lucky who are absolutely healthy with no bad lifestyle choices. These people are given lower premiums since they are of smaller risk to die young. The premiums start to rise if your status is lower than supper preferred because you have a shorter life expectancy. Most Americans are classified as standard. There are also lower classes, which get rather costly premiums.

Most insuring companies take into account other factors when determining your risk type. They are:

• Various diseases. There must be no cases of cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes or cancer to qualify for a super preferred class. It also includes no family history of cardiovascular disease prior to age 60, for parents and siblings.
• Blood pressure. A preferred risk is a person whose average, untreated blood pressure doesn't exceed 150/90.
• Cholesterol. A cholesterol ratio must not exceed 7 and cholesterol level - 260. For smokers these indexes must not surpass 6 and 250 correspondingly.
• Drugs or alcohol addictions can significantly increase your premiums.

Think about it when you want to get your own policy. But, don't try to lie to the insurer, because it gives them the right to cancel the policy.

It's quite difficult to change your risk type to get better rates, because not always you can do anything about your family history. Still, there are some things in your life that you can change to get better status. Which is more, life insurance companies lower their rates when you start talking about behavioral risk factors and mortality rates.

The insurers want real evidence that you're eager to quit bad habits. Visit your local health provider on a regular basis and have blood tests to demonstrate improving ratio of cholesterol and lipids, keep records of falling blood pressure, and so on. When your insurance company will see the evidence of your motivation to improve your health, they are sure to lower your premium.

Types of Life Insurance

• Term Life Insurance
• Whole Life Insurance
• Universal Life Insurance
• Children's Life Insurance
• Mortgage Life Insurance
• Return of Premium Life Insurance
• Senior Life Insurance
• Smokers Life Insurance