Excessive Weight Can Cause Issues With Insurance

By Author: Marcus Stalder
Total Articles: 491
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If you've gained a couple of pounds over the winter do not worry about your insurance rates going up. A small fluctuation in body weight won't affect your health much so that the insurance rates to be changed. However, if you have gained a lot of weight and it has become stable then be prepared for the rates to go up. And it gets worse: you can keep your weight at the same level yet your insurance rates will still go up because there are more and more people with weight problems in the country and the medical costs go up year after year because of the weight related conditions. But why does weight impact insurance rates in the first place?

It really depends on how much weight you've gained and what group you belong to. You've probably heard about the Body Mass Index (BMI) which is used to determine the type of weight group a person belongs to. There are countless online calculators you can use to determine your BMI. If it's under 25 then you can consider yourself a person with healthy weight. Problems start from 25 and onwards, as overweight persons belong to the range between 25 and 29.9 and obesity starts from 30 and ...
... higher. What this has to do with health, you may ask? It's pretty simple. Excessive weight has been determined to cause a wide range of health problems such as diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension, hormonal imbalance and even certain types of cancer. And the risk of developing these condition increases with the increase of BMI. So if a person is considered to be clinically obese the cost of both health and life insurance will be higher because of the risks involved.

Let's take a look at the figures to be more descriptive. If a 55 year old male non-smoker with a BMI would want to get life insurance with a coverage of $250,000 then his premiums would be around $4,300. However, if the BMI for the same person would be below 30 then the average yearly premium would be around $3,700. The same trends are true for health insurance, which is also strictly related to the health risks a person can face.

Is there any way to make life insurance lower? The most obvious and rational way of course is to loose weight. Yes, this is always a challenging process that not everyone can succeed in. However, the benefits you get from loosing excessive weight stretch far beyond the simple money saving with life and health insurance. It's a matter of personal health and well-being that is more important than financial savings you get from overcoming obesity. You have to understand that with each pound lost you decrease the risk of suffering from serious health problems and increase your life expectancy. And this is of course far more important than saving some money on insurance. So if you're thinking about it, make the step and start exercising and following a diet because there are only benefits resulting from this.