Giving up smoking will increase your wealth

Health Insurance - The Key To Savings

Business & Insurance | Giving up smoking will increase your wealth | You'll save more than the cost of the cigarettes if you stop smoking. 

The cost of your life and critical illness insurance premiums should be 

cut by half. Figures released recently by the Health Development Agency confirm that 

smoking is killing around 83,200 people a year in England. It is the 

largest cause of illness and significantly decreases smokers expected 

life-span.Speak to any reformed smoker and they will tell you just how difficult 

it was to overcome the habit, although invariably they enthuse about 

their improved health and the saving in money. Did you know that smokers 

spend an incredible £92,000 on cigarettes, on average, during their 

lifetime? How's that for an incentive to quit?

Make Sure You Are Covered - Health Insurance

It's not only the cost of the cigarettes that they'll save on. Life and 

critical illness insurance premiums will be healthier too – smokers can 

pay up to double the cost of their insurance cover. With the increased 

accessibility to information on the internet, people have been searching 

for ever lower prices for their insurance cover. This has led to a price 

war with insurance companies battling to retain their share of the 

market. In an effort to recoup some of the lost revenue, insurers have 

tightened their criteria and now insist that smokers must pay an 

increased premium to cover the health risk which their habit fuels. The 

standard rates for these insurance policies shown in insurance 

advertisements are for the fit and healthy and clearly the risks to 

which smokers expose themselves take them out of this category.

Family Health Insurance

For even more incentive, smoking bans are now in place in enclosed 

public places in Scotland and Ireland and England will be joining them 

around mid 2007. An impressive number of people have given up their 

smoking habit as a result of this. 

The Right Plan At the Right Price - Health Insurance

Once you've achieved your goal and broken the habit, you'll have to 

convince your insurer that you're a reformed character! You need to have 

given up smoking for between 1 and 5 years (most companies would be 

happy with 1 year) before you can be counted as a non-smoker. Then you can contact 

your company and ask them to re-quote. You'll see a very much reduced 

premium. At this stage it's worth trying the internet to see if you can 

save even more money. It would be as well to wait until your new insurer 

has checked your health details and accepted your application before 

cancelling your current cover.It's no trouble to cancel a policy – stop paying! If you cancel your 

direct debit the insurer will contact you fairly quickly to see what's 

going on. You then need to tell them that you no longer require the 

cover. Cancellation charges will not apply.

Great Medical Cared Requires Great Medical Insurance

Talking of health details, please be completely truthful when you fill 

in the proposal form. In the event of making a claim, your insurer will 

approach your Doctor for confirmation of your non-smoking status and if 

you're found to have misled them, your claim will be refused due to non 

disclosure of facts.However long you've been a smoker, the improvement in your health gained 

by quitting is very worthwhile. Remember, to miss-quote someone famous, 

“Tis better to have smoked and stopped, then never to have stopped at all!” Or something like that.