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Your health and lifestyle directly determine what you pay for life insurance. Insurers price your policy based on your risk level, which you can control more than you think. Implement the appropriate lifestyle changes, document them accurately, and you can significantly reduce your premiums. Let’s walk through which changes have the biggest impact and how to use them to lower your costs. Here’s how lifestyle changes can lower your life insurance costs.
How Lifestyle Changes Can Lower Your Life Insurance Costs
Insurers assess how likely you are to die during the policy term based on your current health, your medical history, your lifestyle habits, and statistical risk factors. The healthier and safer you appear, the lower the premium they charge.
They sort applicants into rate classes that determine pricing. The common classes are:
- Preferred Plus for people in excellent health with no risk factors.
- Preferred for people in outstanding health with minimal issues.
- Standard Plus for average health with some managed conditions.
- Standard for typical health with controlled issues.
- Substandard or table-rated for people with serious health problems.
Each rate class comes with a different premium. Moving from standard to preferred can cut your premium by 30% to 50% for the same coverage amount. Small improvements in your health can bump you up a rate class and save you hundreds of dollars per year.
Quit Smoking (Biggest Impact)
Quitting smoking is the single most effective way to lower your life insurance costs. Smokers pay 2-3 times more than non-smokers for the same coverage. The difference is massive.
- A healthy 35-year-old non-smoker might pay $40-$50 per month for $500,000 in 20-year term coverage. A smoker pays $28,800 to $36,000, while a non-smoker pays $9,600 to $12,000.
- To qualify for non-smoker rates, you need to be completely tobacco-free for 12 to 24 months, depending on the insurance company. That includes cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, nicotine patches or gum, and vaping.
- Vaping counts as tobacco use for life insurance purposes even though it doesn’t contain tobacco. Insurance companies test for nicotine in your blood and urine during the medical exam, so you can’t cheat.
Lose Weight and Lower Your BMI
Insurance companies use height and weight charts to calculate your Body Mass Index, or BMI, and that number significantly affects your rate class. Being overweight increases your premiums. Being obese can push you into substandard rates or even result in a denial.
The rate class breakpoints usually fall around specific BMI thresholds. For Preferred Plus rates, most companies want a BMI under 27. For Preferred, under 30. For Standard rates, the thresholds range from 32 to 35, where you might pay more or get denied entirely.
Let’s use a concrete example:
A 6-foot-tall man weighing 240 pounds has a BMI of about 32.5, which puts him in the Standard or Standard Plus range.
If he loses 40 pounds and drops to 200 pounds, his BMI would drop to 27.1, which could qualify him for preferred rates. That weight loss could save him $30 to $50 per month on his premium, or $360 to $600 per year.
You don’t have to get to your ideal weight to see premium savings. You just need to get under the next BMI threshold.
Control Blood Pressure and Cholesterol
Insurance companies consider uncontrolled high blood pressure and high cholesterol as indicators of an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. If your blood pressure is consistently above 140/90 or your total cholesterol is over 240 with poor ratios, you’ll end up in a lower rate class or possibly be denied coverage.
The good news is that both conditions are manageable with medication and lifestyle changes. If you’re diagnosed with high blood pressure or high cholesterol, get on medication, make dietary changes, exercise more, and get your numbers under control. Then document that control over a period of six to 12 months with regular doctor visits and lab tests.
Manage Diabetes Effectively
Diabetes is a tricky condition for life insurance. Uncontrolled diabetes with high A1C levels, frequent blood sugar spikes, and poor management puts you at substandard rates or results in a denial. But well-controlled diabetes can qualify you for Standard or even Standard Plus rates with some companies.
If you have type 2 diabetes, focus on getting your A1C under 7.0 and keeping it there consistently. Follow your treatment plan, take your medications as prescribed, monitor your blood sugar regularly, see your doctor and avoid complications. Insurance companies review your medical records and look for patterns.
If they see six months or a year of well-managed diabetes with excellent numbers and no emergency room visits, they’re much more likely to approve you at reasonable rates.
Avoid or Quit Risky Hobbies
Dangerous hobbies and activities add surcharges to your life insurance premium or disqualify you entirely with some companies. Skydiving, rock climbing, scuba diving, motorcycle racing, and private aviation all increase your risk of accidental death, and insurance companies price that risk into your premium.
- If you skydive twice a year as a hobby, you might pay an extra $2 to $5 per $1,000 of coverage, which adds $100 to $250 per year for a $500,000 policy. If you fly small planes regularly, the surcharge can be even higher. Some companies flat-out refuse to insure people who engage in certain activities.
- If you’re willing to quit the risky hobby, you can remove the surcharge. If you’re not willing to quit, shop around because different companies have different policies on risky activities. One company might charge you 50% more for scuba diving, while another company doesn’t care as long as you’re certified and diving within recreational limits.
Improve Your Driving Record
Your driving record matters for life insurance because DUIs, reckless driving charges, and multiple speeding tickets suggest risky behavior that increases your likelihood of dying in a car accident.
A DUI on your record can push you into a higher-rate class or result in a denial for several years after the incident. Most insurance companies want to see at least three to five years pass after a DUI before they’ll consider you for standard rates. Multiple moving violations within a short period, such as three speeding tickets within two years, can also raise concerns.
If you have a bad driving record, the best thing you can do is wait. Take a defensive driving course if your state offers them. Keep your record clean for 3-5 years and then apply or reapply for coverage. Your rates will improve significantly once the violations age off your record.
Reduce Alcohol Consumption
Questions about alcohol use and medical records, particularly if you’ve received treatment for alcohol-related issues, reveal heavy drinking on life insurance applications. A DUI is an obvious red flag, but so is admitting to drinking multiple drinks every day or binge drinking regularly.
Insurance companies ask specific questions about how many drinks you consume per week and whether you’ve ever been treated for alcohol abuse. Moderate drinking, defined as 1-2 drinks per day for men or one drink per day for women, usually doesn’t affect your rates. Heavy drinking can push you into substandard categories.
Time Your Application After Health Improvements
Don’t apply for life insurance the day after you quit smoking or the week after you start blood pressure medication. Insurance companies want to see sustained improvement over time, not a temporary change that might not last.
If you’ve made health improvements, wait at least six months and ideally 12 months before you apply for coverage. During that time, document your progress with regular doctor visits, lab tests, and consistent results. When you apply, you’ll have a solid track record showing that your changes are real and lasting, which improves your chances of getting approved at better rates.
Schedule your medical exam when your health is stable and your numbers are good. You want to present the best possible picture of your health when the insurance company assesses you.
Reapply or Request Re-Rating After Lifestyle Changes
If your health or lifestyle issues are causing you to pay substandard rates for your life insurance, don’t assume you have to stay with those rates forever. If you’ve made significant improvements, you have options.
Some insurance companies allow you to request a re-rating or re-underwriting without applying for a completely new policy. You submit updated medical records and possibly take a new medical exam, and if your health has improved enough, they’ll lower your premium. Not all companies offer this, but it’s worth asking.
Alternatively, you can apply for a new policy with better rates and then cancel your old expensive policy once the new one is in force. Compare the two options. Just make sure the new policy is active before you cancel the old one so you’re never without coverage.
What Won’t Help Lower Your Rate
Some risk factors are genetic, and no amount of lifestyle change will improve them. Getting older only increases your permanence. Every year you age, your rates go up if you reapply. You can’t change your family medical history. If your parents or siblings had heart attacks or cancer at a young age, that genetic risk is part of your profile forever. If you had a heart attack five years ago, that’s in your medical records, and it will always affect your rates even if you’ve fully recovered.
Your occupation matters too. Dangerous jobs like roofing, logging, or commercial fishing carry higher premiums due to occupational risk.
What is Beem, and where does it fit?
Beem is a financial app that helps families manage money and reach financial goals, including health-related goals that affect life insurance costs. If you’re trying to quit smoking, lose weight, or make other lifestyle changes, Beem’s budgeting tools can help you redirect money toward those goals. Download the app here.
Use Subscription Monitor to find recurring charges you don’t need and redirect that money toward a gym membership, healthier groceries, or smoking cessation programs. Safe-to-Spend helps you budget for health-related expenses without wrecking your monthly finances. Beem Life Benefit also offers $500 or $1,000 in simple no-exam coverage without rate class complications. Check out more here.
Make Changes, Document Progress, Reapply
Identify which lifestyle factors are affecting your life insurance rate the most. If you smoke, that’s your number one priority. If you’re significantly overweight, focus on losing 20 to 40 pounds. If your blood pressure or cholesterol is high, get on medication and bring your numbers down.
Set a six- to 12-month timeline for making improvements and documenting them with your doctor. Track your progress with regular checkups and lab tests. Once your improvements are stable and sustained, get new life insurance quotes from at least three companies. Apply for coverage with your improved health status and see what rates you qualify for.
The potential savings are massive. Quitting smoking alone can save you $1,000 to $2,000 per year. Adding weight loss and blood pressure control on top of that can cut your premium in half or better. Over a 20-year policy term, you’re looking at $20,000 to $40,000 in total savings. That’s real money that can go toward your mortgage, your kids’ college, or your retirement instead of padding an insurance company’s bottom line.
