Saturday, July 12, 2014

Can Life Insurance Companies Tell If You Smoke?

Life insurance companies will ask on the application for coverage if you do smoke, in addition, they may require you to take a medical exam including a blood, urine, follicle or swab test to determine if you smoke.

If you are rerouted by the insurance company to take a blood test, urine test, or swab, the presence of nicotine will show up in all those tests.

If you have ever taken Chantix or other prescription drugs to help you quit smoking, the insurance company will see that on your pharmacy record.

If your medical records from your doctors show that you smoke or have smoked in the past, and you have a health condition that causes underwriters to order your medical records from your doctors, the life insurance company will take the word of what is written in your medical records.

If you're applying for a life insurance policy with a medical exam required, one of the items they test for in the urine test is the presence of nicotine in your system. If nicotine is present in your system, whatever risk class they approve you at will also be based on tobacco user rates. There are some life insurance companies that may offer you non-smoker rates depending on the frequency of your smoking.

Please note, even if you buy a non-medical life insurance policy and you lie on the application about your tobacco usage, saying you son;t use tobacco when you do, if you die in the first 2 years of being insured by the life insurance policy (the Contestability Period), and the insurance company discovers that you intentionally misrepresented the information on the application, they can refuse to pay out the death benefit to your life insurance policy's beneficiary and only give them the premiums that were paid into your policy.

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