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November 13, 2012

How Healthy Living Affects Your Life Insurance Premiums

Life insurance premiums are not set in stone; in fact, a number of factors can actually affect your life insurance premiums. For example, one of the most obvious ways in which these premiums can be affected is by way of healthy living. If the policyholder lives a healthy and clean lifestyle, then he or she can expect to have premiums that are widely different than an individual who leads a lifestyle that is highly unhealthy.

The thing is that the price of your actual life insurance premium will be based upon the rate class into which you fit. The bottom line is that healthy living affects your premium very positively because, if you are healthy, you are going to be paying a lot less for your premium than a person who is unhealthy and, thus, considered a significantly greater risk to the insurance company. Clearly, this has but one implication to the thinking person: Living a healthier lifestyle is an effective way to save a whole lot of money on your premium.

Insurance Physical

In a lot of cases, and this particularly applies the older you become, an insurance physical will be required by the insurance company because you appear a greater liability to them. Normally, if you are still under 40 years of age and just applying for a policy that is less than $100,000, you will not be subjected to an insurance physical. However, this changes considerably when you get over the 40-year mark. For instance, the older you are, it is less likely that you can actually purchase a policy without subjecting yourself to an insurance physical. Further, you can purchase less insurance without submitting to an exam the older you get. To wit, letís say you are 45 years old; you could purchase just $50,000 worth of insurance without submitting to an exam. If you are 50 years old, you might only be able to purchase $10,000 worth of insurance with no exam.

Risk Pool

If you do go through an insurance physical, you will be put into a risk pool based on the results of your exam. As explained above, the worse your physical results are, the higher the price of your premium will be due to the fact that the insurance company will see you as a greater risk to their bottom line. In other words, the insurance company will believe that they will have to pay out their insurance on you sooner rather than later if your health is poor. Thus, it pays, literally, to live a healthy lifestyle if you are going to take out an insurance policy on yourself.

There are things you can do in order to live a healthier lifestyle and, thereby, lower your premium. The tips include such common sense activities such as: losing weight, quitting smoking, quitting drinking, abstain from fast foods, begin regularly exercising, eating more nutritiously by eating less processed foods and more from the different food groups, and, finally, drinking more water and staying well hydrated.

To learn more about life insurance premiums contact Allan Kaplan and his team or request a quote online.