Life Insurance for Smokers

If you’ve been searching for low cost life insurance for cigarette smokers, cigar, or pipe smokers, you’ve likely found that the premium is double to triple what non smokers pay.  The good news is there are some life insurance carriers whose niche is having the lowest premiums for cigarette smokers, and others who offer Non Tobacco ratings to tobacco users, such as cigar and pipe smokers.

Cigarette Smokers:  Across the board, your low price leaders for smokers’ life insurance are Western Reserve Life and Transamerica.  Let’s look at a couple examples:

A 50 year old male smokerneeds $500,000, 30 year term.  Transamerica comes in at #1 at $5865 annually.  Assume this same man favors MetLifefor some reason, and only got a quote from MetLife and no other company.  MetLife is #10 on the list, charging $6429 for the same 30 year policy.  That’s $564 more, or a 10% difference!  You see, it pays to shop.

A 32 year old male smoker needs $1,000,000, 30 year term.  With Western Reserve Life, he’ll pay $2500 annually.  If we move down just 9 spots, Reliastar-ING comes in at $3105 annually.  Folks, that’s a 24% increase.

Strategy for Smokers: Your best bet is to take the amount of insurance you need right now, while you’re healthy.  Then try to quit smoking.  After one year of no tobacco use, as long as you’re still healthy, you can apply for a new policy and get standard non tobacco rates with most carriers.  This should cut your premium in half.

Cigar Smokers & Other Tobacco: Be careful here.  Many carriers don’t distinguish between the pipe/cigar smoker and a cigarette smoker, so if you apply with the wrong insurance carrier, you’ll pay for it!  Many carriers offer non tobacco ratings so long as you are a responsible, occasional user.  By most carriers’ guidelines, that means not more than one celebratory cigar or pipe per month, and you must test negative for nicotine in your urine analysis.  Usually your best case scenario is Preferred Non Tobacco.

There are a few carriers, however, that are trailblazers in the non cigarette tobacco category.  ING-Reliastar, for example, offers its Preferred Plus (it’s best rating) to these responsible tobacco users.  I’ve also seen preferred offers from Banner Life and Genworth.  Then there’s Lincoln National, who allows up to 24 cigars per year, still offering their preferred non tobacco rating.  American General will allow up to one per week, still offering preferred non tobacco.

Then there’s Prudential, who not only will allow unlimited cigars, chew, and pipe smoking, but will even let you test positive for nicotine, and still give you non tobacco ratings.  It’s important to note here that Prudential’s non tobacco rating for these tobacco users is usually more expensive than other carriers’ preferred non tobacco ratings.  But it’s still better than paying tobacco rates!

If you smoke cigarettes, cigars, pipes or chew tobacco, my advice is to speak with a knowledgeable, independent life insurance agent like me who can shop for you and find the best price available.  Also see my post on Life Insurance for Cigar Smokers.