Life insurance is a great way to protect your loved ones financially, but it’s also a major investment. Over a period of years, even a slightly lower premium can yield major savings.
One way to save big is changing your lifestyle choices. There’s way more to it than just your age, overall health and whether or not you smoke.
In this article we’ll cover 5 lifestyle choices that can influence your term life insurance rate.
Term Life Insurance
Term life insurance offers protection for 10,15,20, or 30 years. In the event you pass away, the insurance company will compensate your beneficiaries, given you pass away before your term expires.
With term life insurance, you will receive four benefits:
- Flexibility — You can use term life insurance to protect your family, secure a bank loan, pay estate taxes, and more. If you own a business, you can use term life insurance to protect your employees, the ones you rely on the most, grow your business, and fund buy-sell agreements.
- Inexpensive— You will pay for what you require and not a penny more. In comparison to other types of life insurance policies, with term life insurance, you can buy the highest amount of protection at an affordable rate.
- Simple — Term life insurance is easy to understand. You will not have a confused expression on your face when the insurance agent will try to explain it to you. In fact, this is one type of life insurance that you can buy without needing to go for a medical exam.
- Temporary — Term life insurance will expire, either in 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 years from the day you purchase it. You can decide on how long you want to have term life insurance for. If you need to extend it during an ongoing duration, talk to your insurance company.
Two things that term life insurance is not is permanent and a savings plan. If you need to life insurance that extends more than 30 years, you need to get life insurance. Even though you do have the option to extend the duration of the term life insurance, it will cost you more down the line.
It is not saving plans either, meaning that it is not a bank account. However, you can use the money you save by obtaining term life insurance and place it in a real savings account. If you have set your mind on buying term life insurance, you will want the best and lowest rates possible. For that, you will need to make certain lifestyle changes.
The Lifestyle Choices Causing a Negative Impact on Your Term Life Insurance Rate
The following lifestyle choices can negatively influence your term life insurance rate:
1. Are You Overweight or Obese?
If you are overweight or obese, it exposes you to several different types of health issues such as stroke, diabetes, heart disease, and more. Insurance companies will see you as a risk and it will charge you a higher term life insurance rate. You can consider losing weight before you apply for term life insurance.
You can join an exercise class, go to the gym, or walk in the park or neighborhood to lose weight. You can also start to eat healthy food such as fresh fruits and green, leafy vegetables. Losing weight is an aspect of your life you can control. By managing your weight, you are also prolonging your life. Think about your family in this instance. You want to stay around them as long as possible.
2. Do You Smoke?
People who smoke put themselves at risk of developing a wide variety of medical issues, if not now, then in the future. Smoking puts you at risk of premature death. You will find yourself paying higher term life insurance premiums, as for insurance companies, you are a risk. If you smoke, you need to quit smoking or try to minimize the number of times you smoke in the day with the aim to quit for good.
If you want to get a lower term life insurance rate, smoking is a habit that you will need to break.
3. Are You a Heavy Drinker?
People who drink alcohol a daily basis and easily get drunk, meaning they exceed moderate levels, put themselves at risk of development medical issues such as liver problems. For insurance companies, you are a risk and they will charge your higher insurance premiums to protect themselves. If you drink on a daily basis, it is time you stop.
Drink when you are at a party or have one beer after you come home if you must. Other then that, you need to decrease the number of times you drink alcohol during the day.
4. Do You Have a Poor Driving Record?
If you have received several traffic tickets in the past for committing driving violations or you have been involved in one or more auto accidents, your term life insurance rate will be higher. You will find yourself paying higher rates, which is why you should drive carefully, following all traffic rules. If you have a clean record, obtain term life insurance now to get a lower rate.
5. Do You Like to Live on the Edge?
Living on the edge means that you like to drive racing cars, climb mountains, rock climb, and other high-risk sports and activities. Since the risk of losing your life is high for those who like to live on the edge, insurance companies will provide them with a higher term life insurance rate. Even though you cannot change this about you, you can take measures to protect yourself against accidents that can happen.
Most of these lifestyle choices are ones that you can easily choose not to make anymore. If you want to reduce your term life insurance rate, start making these changes.
Have questions? We’re here to help!
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If you’d like to get a Term Life insurance quote please visit our Life Insurance page for more information about how we found the insurance policies for our clients for over 30 years.
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