Last updated: 11/09/2020 | Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
High risk life insurance
The cost of your life insurance will basically depend on how likely you are to die within the policy term. This risk will be calculated based on various factors about you and your life, from your age to you occupation.
Different insurers will place different weight on different aspects of your lifestyle and health when calculating your premiums, and some will exclude customers from cover altogether if they are deemed too at risk, so you should always read your policy small print before you sign on the dotted line.
In This Guide:
Age
Fairly straightforwardly, the older you are, the closer you are to the end of your life. Therefore, older customers will, all other things being equal, pay more than younger customers for their cover.
Of course, if you’re younger and have your policy open for longer before you pass away, you may end up paying more overall for your policy, but by paying less each month you’ll be getting more for your money.
Health issues
Another straightforwardly important factor that will affect the cost of your cover will be your state of health.
This includes any health issues you currently have, so if you are diabetic for example, you’re life insurance policy will cost more than it would for someone who isn’t.
This also includes any serious health issues you might have had in the past. If you’ve had a heart attack in the past, or if you’ve had repeated instances of any medical condition, then again, your cover will cost more than someone considered more healthy and therefore less at risk of making a claim.
Most insurers will also ask to look at your family medical history when deciding the cost of the policy they offer you. This is because there are many health problems that can be inherited, or at the very least the risk of contracting them may be increased if you have a family history of that particular problem. Asthma is a good example of this, as are a variety of heart problems.
Lifestyle choices
Various aspects of your lifestyle will also affect your health in a way that the insurance companies will see as relevant.
Smoking is a big example of this. You’ll have to let your insurer know if you’re a smoker as this will increase the cost of your policy. Generally, in order to be able to say you aren’t a smoker, you’ll need to be nicotine free for at least 12 months, but you should check with your provider
Importantly, smokers of e-cigarettes will also count as smokers to insurers as the long term effects of e-cigarettes are still not really known.
Insurers will sometimes require you to be tested for nicotine and so if you do only smoke e-cigarettes you’ll still show up as positive on such a test.
When you apply for life insurance, you’ll also be asked how much alcohol you drink when building up your health problem. Naturally, the more you drink, the more your policy will cost.
You can also work to decrease the cost of your premiums by showing that you lead a particularly healthy lifestyle by, say, exercising regularly and eating well.
Hobbies and pastimes
If you regularly partake in certain dangerous pastimes like sky diving or mountaineering, your insurer will want to know as this will increase the risk of you making a claim.
Some insurers will exclude certain people from cover if they take part in any particularly dangerous activities with high associated mortality rates.
Occupation
Certain jobs are considered dangerous and have high mortality rates such as working on an oil rig or in a mine.
If you are employed in a particularly dangerous line of work you might find your life insurance more expensive and some insurers will flat out to refuse people based on their job. Soldiers, for example, will often have a hard time taking out a life insurance policy.
Full disclosure
It is absolutely crucial that when you compare life insurance via our application form, you are totally transparent about any aspects of your life that may class you as a high risk customer.
If you are found to have withheld any relevant information from the insurance provider, you may find your policy invalidated and your family will not receive a pay-out in the unfortunate event of your untimely death.
