Getting An Oregon Life Insurance Plan – How Does Your Health Affect It?

Your personal health has a huge impact on your policy performance, as it directly correlates with how long you are going to live. It’s easy, the longer you live the healthier you become. Oregon life insurance providers are keen to protect healthier individuals who are at low risk of early death.

In the United States, people’s average life expectancy is 78 years old, and is increasing. It is because of how the environment has become health-conscious, and also because of technical and health-care changes.

People start making gradual health-conscious improvements to their lifestyles when they are young, in order to better themselves in the future. Living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t just save your life it saves you a lot of life insurance money.

What is Considered Healthy to a Life Insurance Company?

Rates are decided by life insurance firms in a method called underwriting. Underwriting is the method of estimating the overall risk that someone presents to the insurance firm that has to pay out a claim over their policy period. 

Health is one of the key factors accounted for in the underwriting process.

What Health Factors are Taken Into Consideration by Life Insurance Companies?

There are several variables which are taken into consideration when assessing the overall health of someone. Those key factors are usually taken into account by life insurance firms when assessing risk:

• Age
• Gender
• Height – Weight ratio
• Family history
• Medical history
• Smoker/non-smoker
• Lifestyle

How Weight Affects Life Insurance Rates

Yeah, how much you weigh plays a big part in your well being. A lot of life insurance providers look at BMI, or the Body Mass Index, to measure mortality based on average weights depending on the height when it comes to weight and life insurance. More than one-third of Americans are considered obese by the Center for Disease Control statistics.

It is an impressive amount but that has been noticed by society and as a result many people change their diets accordingly. Life insurance providers have also taken note of the safety risks that may occur if someone is known as overweight or obese.

Diabetes, heart attacks and high blood pressure are only a few examples of the health issues that overweight can cause. Life insurance levels are also higher for obese and overweight individuals, and even higher for health risks that arise from their weight.

How Age Affects Life Insurance Rates

By applying for life insurance, insurance providers will seek to calculate your life expectancy–how long you’re supposed to live, with the details you’ve received. The estimate of your life expectancy is based on millions of data points that life insurance firms will compare with.

Age has the biggest influence on your policy pricing because as your age grows so do your chances of passing away. Sad, but true. That’s why we encourage you to get a life insurance policy when you are still young and in good health. What, instead, is the safest age to buy life insurance?

The average age to purchase life insurance is below 35. This is usually the age when people start a family, and depending on their income, may have others. When you’re at low risk, life insurance is better bought, so locking in rates at a young age is a smart way to get your family insurance at a reasonable rate.

How Gender Affects Life Insurance Rates

Your gender is another attribute that life insurance firms will look at when they give you a price. Life insurance firms use mathematical methods to assess the amount of time that someone is alive.

Women on average live 5 years longer than men. Females have lower life insurance rates as a result, since they will pay longer.

How Does Lifestyle Affect Life Insurance Rates?

Your work is just one portion of how dangerous your daily life is. Your lifestyle also helps to assess the rates on life insurance.

Do you sit down on the beach and read a nice book? Or are you an adrenaline junky who is sailing speedboats, going hang gliding, cliff diving and scaling the mountains?

This can be seen by life insurance providers as a risk that will, in effect, increase the premiums. There is a much greater advantage of getting a life insurance policy if you do live life on the edge.

How Does Smoking Affect Your Life Insurance Rates?

Perhaps the most affecting factor for life insurance premiums is smoking, rather than becoming terminally ill. Smoking is a major red flag in the life insurance industry due to the negative effects on health.

Life insurance premiums are typically 2-5 times higher for smokers than for non-smokers.

Smoking will take your lives years away. It is the leading cause of lung cancer, which accounts for 480,000 deaths a year. In the United States the average smoker dies 10 years earlier than the average non-smoker.

Life insurance firms see how big a burden smoking is on your future, and they pass through the premiums the burden on to you. Luckily smoking is a habit that can be thrown out for you. 

Within the first year after quitting, smokers who quit will get their rates back down to just around 10-20 percent more expensive than non-smokers (barring any other health condition).

All that have a program and plan to leave will even get better rates by taking your medical test again and get a reclassification for your medical risk. This also helps to reduce rates, though not every policy offers this.

Not only can you save money on your life insurance policy while maintaining a safe lifestyle, it will keep you with your family for longer. Before you get a quote from a life insurance provider, take the time to make sure you are safe.

For all your questions on life insurance with living benefits and health insurance, reach us through 503-928-6918. You can also send your inquiries to info@healthplansinoregon.com.