Life Insurance – Trim Down your Waist and your Wallet

Life insurance can seem like a lot of money to pay - the average healthy non-smoker with no weight issues can expect to pay around a thousand pounds a year for life insurance for £150,000 cover. But being overweight, like smoking, can push your premiums up by an extra £500 a year on a 25-year policy. If you needed an incentive to lose weight, the cost of your life insurance should give you a bit of a boost.

Life Insurance: Fat Tax

Obesity is the new epidemic that's sweeping the UK, triggering a raft of associated diseases from heart disease to diabetes. From a life insurance company's point of view, it makes sense that the higher the risk of critical illness or death, the higher your premiums will be. The move to increase the cost of life insurance by up to 50% more has been dubbed as a 'fat tax' by the press. But it isn't just weight - if you are classed as obese, smoke or have been a smoker, or had other medical conditions or complications in the past, you could be paying an extra of up to 400% than a healthy, slim, non-smoker.

Life Insurance Companies: Higher Payments

Of course there are things in life we can't control - but life insurance companies claim that smoking and weight are lifestyle choices we can. Obesity and smoking can trigger cancers, liver disease and heart problems and with one in four adults said to have weight problems, it's a costly affair when it comes to life insurance payments. Some leading life insurance companies are introducing higher payments on customers who have a body mass index of 30.

Life Insurance: Get in Shape

Although many of us are aware that our weight and exercise impacts on our health, when it comes to life insurance it can be a cloudy area. People often lose weight or take up exercise regimes, before letting themselves go for a year, than starting again...weight and weight loss is a vicious cycle for lifetime dieters. If you filled in your life insurance claim when you were thin, but then put on weight due to an emotional crisis or problem, you need to let your health insurance company know. Just as you would if you were a lapsed non-smoker.

Judging people on their life insurance premiums by their BMI index is not always a direct indication of health or fitness, but the Association of British Insurers were quoted in the press as stating: "If you are obese, you are at greater risk of contracting certain diseases. It is just the same as increasing the premium for a smoker or somebody with previous medical conditions."

Looking for Life Insurance? Speak to The Insurance Service

The Insurance Service's ethos is that it strives to provide fair health insurance policies in an industry dominated by a small number of major providers and decided to give more choice to those seeking health insurance policies. To find out more about the health insurance and income protection policies available from The Insurance Service, just call 0845 053 3404 or fill in the online enquiry form.

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