The following is a guest post by Natasha Cornelius.
Do you smoke? Or maybe you’re trying to quit? Both of these cases can impact shopping for life insurance. Whether you smoke or not, life insurance is extremely important especially if you have dependents counting on you for financial support.
These dependents could include your spouse, your children, relatives you help take care of, or even someone who may have helped you out in the past by co-signing a loan for you. Each of these individuals would be financially impacted if you died. Term life insurance can financially help those you leave behind if you died prematurely. For young, healthy, non-smoking individuals, term life insurance is very affordable.
But what about for those who use tobacco, nicotine, or marijuana products? Let’s talk about that.
Who does the life insurance industry consider a “smoker”?
You may already assume that those who smoke are going to have higher premiums than those who don’t, but non-smokers versus smokers is not always so clear. For example, if you are a tobacco chewer, some life insurance carriers may still classify you as a smoker.
These products are considered by insurance carriers when you apply for life insurance:
- Cigarettes
- Cigars
- Pipes
- Chewing Tobacco
- Electronic cigarettes
- Nicotine gum and patches
- Marijuana
When you apply for life insurance, questions are asked about tobacco and drug use. Whatever answers you give will be confirmed with a medical exam. An insurance medical exam includes both a urine and blood test, both of which can reveal traces of nicotine and THC (the chemical in marijuana.)
Price difference between smoker and non-smoker?
The life insurance price difference when comparing smoker rates to non-smoker rates is pretty significant. For the average 40-year old male who does not smoke and is in good health, a 20-year $200,000 term life insurance policy is about $22 per month. This same policy for a 40-year old male in good health but does smoke is about $54 per month. While that is still a reasonable cost to protect your loved ones, it is more than double that of a non-smoker.
Whether you smoke and how much you smoke puts you into a “risk class” that determines your premium amount. Risk classes are determined during the underwriting process. Underwriting is when the life insurance company assesses the risk of insuring you.
Risk classes for non-smokers applying for life insurance are typically:
- Preferred Best: Applicants are in excellent health and do not participate in high-risk activities, and have a clean family medical history.
- Preferred: Applicants are in very good health with a few minor health issues.
- Standard: Applicants are in good health but have some issues whether they are health, lifestyle, or family history related.
- Sub-Standard (normally categorized into “Table” classes): Applicants are in a state of health with one or more chronic illness or they regularly participate in high-risk activities.
Risk classes for smokers applying for life insurance are typically:
- Preferred Smoker: Applicant uses tobacco products, but otherwise is in excellent health.
- Standard Smoker: Applicant is in less than perfect health and regularly smokes or uses a tobacco product.
While it’s next to impossible to obtain non-smoker rates if you smoke cigarettes, there are instances in which you can get non-smoker rates if you use the other products.
Cigars
If you are an occasional cigar smoker, which most insurance companies consider this to be one cigar a month or less, you may qualify for non-smoker insurance rates. You may also qualify for non-smoker rates if you don’t inhale when you smoke cigars, which is typical. In both these cases, the urine samples you give during your medical exam would need to come back with little to no trace of nicotine. If you are the one-cigar-a-month-or-less user, it is important to schedule your medical exam thoughtfully. You may not want to schedule your exam for the morning after the annual poker party.
Pipes
Some life insurance companies feel that smoking a pipe does not carry the same health risks as other tobacco use and will rate applicants as non-smokers no matter how often you smoke a pipe. Other life insurance companies will give you non-smoker rates if you pipe smoke only as long as no nicotine is detected in your urine test, which means you aren’t a daily smoker since cotinine usually takes 1-3 days to leave your system. And then there are the life insurance companies that will automatically give you smoker rates if you smoke a pipe. It really varies by company, so it’s important to work with a life insurance agency that is familiar with the workings of different life insurance carriers.
Chewing Tobacco
While some insurance carriers will issue smoker rates for chewing tobacco use, there are some that do not have any problem with it. The qualifications for non-smoker rates for chewing tobacco use vary by carrier. While some will issue non-smoker rates for chew use as long as no cotinine shows up in the urine test, others will issue even if it does test positive.
E-Cigarettes
The FDA has not formally endorsed e-cigarettes as a safer alternative to cigarettes, but they are generally considered safer than tobacco products because they don’t burn and it’s the tobacco smoke that is most harmful. However, the product has not been around long enough for in-depth research on the long-term effects and the life insurance industry rates the usage accordingly.
If the life insurance company sees nicotine in the medical exam findings, the applicant typically will be classified as a tobacco user. There are nicotine-free e-cigarettes cartridges, but at this time the life insurance industry is still hesitant on ruling them out of the smoker class. Because of insufficient evidence, the industry does not know if vapor inhalation from e-cigarettes causes health problems or not. However, some insurance companies will give non-smoking rates to those who use vapor-based e-cigarettes versus heat-based.
If you have been using e-cigarettes to quit smoking and no longer smoke regular cigarettes and also rarely use e-cigarettes, disclose in your application that you seldom use them. If no traces of nicotine show up in your urine sample, there is a chance you would be qualified for non-smoker life insurance rates.
If you have quit smoking altogether, including using e-cigarettes, after you have already purchased life insurance, you should inform your insurance carrier. If you have been smoke-free for at least 12 months, there is a good chance your premium costs would decrease. Your age does come into play when you reapply though so the sooner you quit the better your chances of cheaper life insurance.
Nicotine Gum and Patches
Are you using cessation products to quit smoking? These products may include gum, lozenges, patches, and e-cigarettes. Because there is nicotine in these products, some life insurance companies will still classify you as a smoker even if you don’t actually smoke anything. The use of these products will cause cotinine to show up in your urine test which would be enough for the carrier to issue you smoker rates.
To be offered non-smoker rates, you have to be cigarette-free for at least 12 months. Let’s say you have been using a cessation gum to quit smoking, but you have only been cigarette-free for 5 months. Even though you currently do not smoke, you will still get the smoker-rate because it has not yet been at least 12 months. However, if you have been cigarette-free for at least a year and still, for example, chew Nicorette Gum daily there are insurance carriers who will offer you non-smoker pricing.
While one company may give non-smoker rates to gum and e-cigarettes, another company may only give non-smoker rates to gum. These examples are why it is very important for you to be very detailed about your tobacco and nicotine product use on your life insurance application.
Marijuana
Now, marijuana use is a horse of a different color. Right now, how insurance companies rate marijuana use is all over the map. Some carriers will outright deny you coverage because they consider marijuana a serious drug and your regular use puts you at risk. Others are more than willing to offer coverage, depending on certain qualifications. If you smoke marijuana only once or twice a year, it is possible that a carrier would offer you their best non-smoker rating. Others may give you a smoker-rate for this. Regular marijuana use is typically given a smoker-rate, but you can definitely still get life insurance coverage.
The reason you use marijuana can also affect how the insurers rate you. Most will rate differently for medical versus recreational use. For medical marijuana use, there are some carriers that will even narrow it down to serious versus not-so-serious conditions, such as marijuana for glaucoma versus marijuana for back pain. In the serious medical condition cases, the company may just underwrite the condition and not the marijuana use. It really varies per company.
As you can see, working with a life insurance agency is really the surefire way to get the best coverage possible. Using an online life insurance company like Quotacy ensures your case is being taken on by professionals who know the little idiosyncrasies of each life insurance carrier. They will know the right carriers to shop your application at. Life insurance will provide you with peace of mind knowing that your family will be financially secure in the event of your death. See how little it will cost by getting a free and anonymous term life insurance quote today.
Do you have a term life insurance policy in place? Did tobacco use affect your rate?
Natasha is the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for Quotacy, an online life insurance agency for the modern consumer. When not at work, you can typically find her volunteering at the local Animal Humane Society or curled up on her couch watching Netflix… unless it’s football season, then the Packers game will be on. You can connect with Natasha on LinkedIn.
