Smoking
Q: Do life insurance companies really check out if I'm a smoker? How?
Answer:
Because smoking is a health hazard, life insurance companies may charge you a higher premium if you smoke. Worse yet, smoking may even prevent you from obtaining life insurance coverage at all. How does an insurance company find out if you smoke and how much? In most cases, they start by simply asking you. Almost every application for life insurance contains questions about health issues, including smoking. Your responses to any smoking-related questions will play a part in a company's decision about whether to sell you life insurance and at what price.
If you do smoke, the best approach is to be truthful. Don't be dishonest about your smoking habit just because you're afraid the insurance company will deny your application or charge you more for insurance. Because a life insurance policy is a type of legal contract, lying on your application for insurance is essentially fraudulent (not to mention unethical). What's more, it could come back to haunt you.
While some companies might never learn of your deceit, others might. Keep in mind that the application you fill out is not the only source of data an insurance company may use to evaluate your risk potential. Most companies will require you to submit to a physical exam, the results of which may indicate that you smoke. Some may conduct in-depth investigations into your background/medical history. Others may request additional information from the Medical Information Bureau (MIB), which maintains centralized medical files on individuals who have applied for life insurance with member companies.
The point is, if you lie about your smoking, insurance companies have ways of uncovering your falsehood and will almost certainly reject your application if they find out you've lied. In addition, if a company sells you a life insurance policy and then finds out that you lied about your smoking, they may be able to terminate your life insurance coverage immediately (leaving your beneficiaries without protection). The reason: most life insurance policies are subject to a contestability period (generally, the first two years that the policy is in force) during which the company has the right to cancel the contract based on any false statements you made on your application. For example, if you died from emphysema due to smoking a year after you bought life insurance and told the insurance company you don't smoke, your beneficiaries might not be entitled to the policy death benefit.
Q: Do life insurance companies really check out if I'm a smoker? How?
Answer:
Because smoking is a health hazard, life insurance companies may charge you a higher premium if you smoke. Worse yet, smoking may even prevent you from obtaining life insurance coverage at all. How does an insurance company find out if you smoke and how much? In most cases, they start by simply asking you. Almost every application for life insurance contains questions about health issues, including smoking. Your responses to any smoking-related questions will play a part in a company's decision about whether to sell you life insurance and at what price.
If you do smoke, the best approach is to be truthful. Don't be dishonest about your smoking habit just because you're afraid the insurance company will deny your application or charge you more for insurance. Because a life insurance policy is a type of legal contract, lying on your application for insurance is essentially fraudulent (not to mention unethical). What's more, it could come back to haunt you.
While some companies might never learn of your deceit, others might. Keep in mind that the application you fill out is not the only source of data an insurance company may use to evaluate your risk potential. Most companies will require you to submit to a physical exam, the results of which may indicate that you smoke. Some may conduct in-depth investigations into your background/medical history. Others may request additional information from the Medical Information Bureau (MIB), which maintains centralized medical files on individuals who have applied for life insurance with member companies.
The point is, if you lie about your smoking, insurance companies have ways of uncovering your falsehood and will almost certainly reject your application if they find out you've lied. In addition, if a company sells you a life insurance policy and then finds out that you lied about your smoking, they may be able to terminate your life insurance coverage immediately (leaving your beneficiaries without protection). The reason: most life insurance policies are subject to a contestability period (generally, the first two years that the policy is in force) during which the company has the right to cancel the contract based on any false statements you made on your application. For example, if you died from emphysema due to smoking a year after you bought life insurance and told the insurance company you don't smoke, your beneficiaries might not be entitled to the policy death benefit.
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