Life Insurance For Smokers (2024)

Yes, smokers can get life insurance. But you should expect to pay higher rates than a non-smoker. That’s because tobacco use is a proven health risk and impacts your life expectancy. Your life expectancy is a major cost factor when life insurance companies set their rates.

You could be denied a life insurance policy as a smoker if you also have certain medical conditions, such as smoking-related diseases. You could also be denied a policy if you lie on your application about tobacco use.

Related: How does life insurance work?

So what counts as smoking? Cigarettes are an obvious candidate. But there are many other forms of “nicotine delivery systems” that can peg you as a “smoker,” “tobacco user” or “nicotine user” when you’re shopping for life insurance:

• Vaping & e-cigarettes
• Bidis (thin hand-rolled cigarettes)
• Cigars
• Pipes
• Hookahs
• Chewing tobacco
• Snuff
• Dissolvable tobacco
• Nicotine replacement therapies (patches, lozenges, gum, inhalers, nose sprays)
• Heated tobacco products

Marijuana users are sometimes also considered smokers, depending on whether the use is occasional or regular.

Regular cigar smokers will usually be considered smokers. But many life insurers will give you a non-smoking rate if you smoke cigars infrequently, such as one or less per month.

Whether or not you’re a “smoker” is decided by each life insurance company, and the parameters can vary significantly. For example:

• Prudential is generally lenient when it comes to cigar smokers. They consider you a non-smoker if you haven’t had a cigarette in 12 months, but you can smoke a pipe, cigar, or chew tobacco. However, you may not get the best non-tobacco rates.
• Legal & General America will consider you a smoker if you’ve used any of these in the last 12 months: Cigarettes, pipes, smokeless tobacco, chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes, vaping and nicotine substitutes such as patches and gum.

Life expectancy is the basis for life insurance rates. So factors that impact your potential “mortality,” or life insurance expectancy, are factored into life insurance quotes.

Cigarette smoking among adults is at an all-time low of 14%, according to the most recent report from the Surgeon General. But 16 million Americans have a smoking-related disease. And you don’t have to already have health consequences in order to get stuck with higher life insurance rates. Simply being a smoker will usually push you into higher rates when you shop for life insurance.

Brace yourself for high life insurance quotes if you’re a smoker. We found that smoking rates will easily be double or triple a non-smoking rate. The increase will vary by your age, gender and the coverage amount, but here are examples of average quote increases for a 20-year, $500,000 term life insurance policy.

Term life insurance rates non-smoking vs. smoking

When you fill out a life insurance application, it’s crucial to be truthful with all your answers. Life insurance companies have many ways to verify everything you’ve stated on the application.

A primary verification method is with a life insurance medical exam, which typically includes taking blood and urine samples. These samples will reveal cotinine in your system, which is a byproduct of nicotine. Cotinine can also be detected in saliva and hair samples. But testing for cotinine isn’t foolproof. Smokers may be able to slip through if they haven’t smoked in a day or two.

About 43% of life insurance applicants didn’t disclose their tobacco habits, according to ExamOne, which performs medical exams for life insurance companies. That’s based on the number of people who had cotinine in their testing analysis but said they didn’t smoke. Younger applicants are the most likely to fail to disclose their tobacco use.

Life insurance companies have a keen interest in weeding out smokers who aren’t telling the truth. Life insurers lose an estimated $3.4 billion a year in premiums because of undisclosed tobacco use, according to Verisk, a data analytics provider.

Among the other ways a company could find out if you’re a smoker or use another type of nicotine:

• Doctors’ records.Requesting your medical records is a routine part of many life insurance applications. Nicotine use will likely be noted in your records.
• Pharmaceutical databases. Life insurers often get lists of your past and current prescriptions. Nicotine use might show up here, such as a prescription for a smoking-cessation drug.
• Past life and health insurance applications.A company called MIB stores your past answers to individual life and health applications. If your past answers are different, it would be flagged here.
• Social media. Insurance companies are increasingly using social media sites such as Facebookto look for evidence of factors that affect rates.
• The sound of your voice.Veriskprovides life insurance companies with analytics that predict whether you’re a smoker from the sound of your voice, combined with other data such as demographic and socioeconomic information. When you answer life insurance application questions over the phone–a common step called a tele-interview–you could be recorded. Verisk can analyze these recordings and flags people who are likely to be smokers.

If you purchased life insurance at a smoking rate and have now quit for at least a year, you may be able to get a better price. You can ask your life insurance company how long you have to quit to be considered a non-smoker.

If you’ve passed that time threshold, you can ask for the rate to be reconsidered. That means you’ll take a new life insurance medical exam and your health will be re-evaluated. If you’ve also developed new medical conditions in the interim, those will factor into the new rate, too. So getting a re-rating isn’t necessarily a slam dunk after you’ve quit smoking

Once you buy a policy, a life insurance company can’t raise your rates. So if you start deep-sea diving or smoking afterwards, you’ll still enjoy the life insurance rates you already locked in. The same is true for health conditions you develop after buying a policy.

The risk for life insurers that you’ll start smoking later in life is pretty low. Nearly 90%of cigarette smokers first try cigarettes before age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Not all life insurance policies require a medical exam. Some policy types, such as guaranteed issue life insurance, require no exam and have no health questions. Rates are based on your age, gender and coverage amount.

Because the life insurer has no health information from you, these types of policies are among the most expensive you can buy. They also tend to offer only low amounts of coverage, such as $5,000 to $25,000. You can still be better off buying a traditional life insurance policy and resigning yourself to taking the medical exam and paying smokers’ rates.

The key to finding the best life rates—whether you use nicotine or not—is shopping around. An independent insurance agent can help you shop the market and get quotes from insurers that tend to be nicotine-friendly.

Here are some tips for smokers to find the best life insurance rates.

• Compare quotes. The most effective way to find the lowest rates is to compare life insurance quotes among multiple insurers.
• Bundle insurance policies. You can typically get a discount if you bundle your life insurance with other policies from the same company, such as car insurance and home insurance.
• Ask to be re-rated. If you’re a smoker who already has a life insurance policy, ask to be re-rated if you quit for at least 12 months. This may require a new life insurance medical exam, and you could end up paying more if you developed any new medical conditions since your last medical exam.

You might be wondering if it’s a good idea to quit smoking and then apply for a life insurance policy. While this might get you better rates, it’s generally not a good idea to wait to buy life insurance.

For instance, you could develop a new health condition while you are in the midst of quitting smoking, which might result in higher rates. Or worse, you could pass away without a policy in place, leaving your dependents in a bind.