Jump to full article: Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, 2009-11-13
Author: J. Brendan Ryan
Intro: When I started in the business nearly 40 years ago, an agent never asked if the person applying for insurance smoked. Smokers and non-smokers all paid the same for their life insurance.
Then, in the 1980s insurers began to charge less for those who said they had not smoked in at least a year. And that is pretty much the standard still used today. But, as explained below, that might be changing.
By the way, insurers still do not screen for "passive" or "sideways" smoke. If you live in a house full of smokers and are around smoke all day long at work, common sense and empirical evidence indicate that you can be affected by such exposure. But this is never questioned in a life-insurance application.
It is common practice for an insurer to change a person's rating from a smoker to a non-smoker if the insured quits. It used to be that the insured simply had to sign a form attesting to the fact that tobacco had not been used for at least a year. Now the insurers that I represent want that signature plus a urine sample (at company expense) to verify that there has at least been no smoking in the recent past.
But beware: Insurers may say that they will reduce the rating if a person gives up smoking, but it does not always happen.
. . .
The bottom line: Don't smoke. Even if you do and eventually give it up, the earlier exposure to carcinogens may affect your cost of life insurance down the road.
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