How Your Lifestyle Can Affect Your Life Insurance Rates

Lifestyle choices can have a huge impact on the rates of your insurance policies. Some of them you may not even know about. Ones like your profession cannot be helped or changed. There are also some choices that you make while on vacation that can cause premiums to go up.

1. Tobacco Use-Smoking, vaping, or chewing any form of nicotine can raise a red flag for the insurance agent. The longer you have used tobacco, the more likely you are to have issues. We all know that these habits are bad for your health and will eventually lead to various types of health problems. Health-related issues are one of the main causes of death throughout the world. Any health problems that an insurer sees will cause an increase in cost.

2. Alcohol Abuse/Drug Use-This kind of goes hand in hand with smoking or chewing. If you are a habitual user of alcohol or drugs you will have a higher chance of early death.

3. Driving Record-If you have a bad driving record it shows that you are careless. Whether they are moving violation tickets or accidents, the insurer will hold it against you and increase your risk value in their formulas.

4. BMI-Your body mass index will also be used as a reason to raise your premium. The longer you have been overweight, the higher the cost will go. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare states that in a recent study 2 out of every 3 people over the age of eighteen are overweight or obese. That is a whopping 67% of the adult population.

5. Occupation-Your occupation is one of the biggest factors that can affect your life insurance If you work construction on high rises, are always on rooftops, or fly a plane or helicopter, you are considered a high risk to the insurer. There are many more professions that are on their list of occupations. If you are in dangerous situations while working you can bet your rates will be higher.

6. Hobbies-Dangerous past-time activities can also be cause for higher policy premiums. If you like to skydive or bungee jump you are more prone to passing away than a person that prefers to garden.

7. Traveling-Traveling around the world, and visiting new areas, is something most of us enjoy. Your life insurance agent will want some in-depth answers when it comes to this area of the application. Unfortunately, when you travel you put yourself at risk. If you visit areas that have a high danger area, it will raise your risk score even more.

Life insurance rates can be affected by numerous different things. Your profession is not something that you probably want to change, same with your hobbies and travels. It is not necessary to switch up your entire life to get some money knocked off your insurance premium. Just be aware of the things that the agent will look for, and don’t be upset when they give you the final number.