{"id":7709,"date":"2013-03-14T13:17:09","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T17:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canadianbudgetbinder.com\/?p=7709"},"modified":"2025-02-20T11:32:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T11:32:14","slug":"how-smoking-affected-the-cost-of-our-life-insurance-premium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalskyweb.co\/canadianbudgetbinder.com\/2013\/03\/14\/how-smoking-affected-the-cost-of-our-life-insurance-premium\/","title":{"rendered":"How Smoking Affected Our Life Insurance Premium"},"content":{"rendered":"

SMOKING WILL GREATLY AFFECT HOW MUCH YOUR LIFE INSURANCE PREMIUM COSTS<\/h2>\n

Canadians know the health risks of smoking<\/strong> plus the financial debt just to buy cigarettes and costs of high life insurance quotes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did you also know that it costs smokers a higher life insurance premium when applying for life insurance as it did for us?<\/p>\n

Who knew there would be such a significant cost difference for life insurance for a smoker and non-smoker as you will later find out.<\/p>\n

It’s been over a year now that we butted out (January 29, 2102) and are both still smoke-free today.<\/p>\n

We will always give thanks to all the support along the way from not only each other but external motivation such as family, friends, our\u00a0family\u00a0doctor, the pharmacy team and of course The Smokers Helpline<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Smoking Memory<\/h2>\n

\"HOW-SMOKING-AFFECTED-OUR-LIFE-INSURANCE-PREMIUM-1\"<\/p>\n

As time went on smoking became less of a habit for us and more of a memory and now we don’t even think about it.<\/p>\n

We won’t lie and say that if someone sparks up a cigarette that the smell is captivating because it still is.<\/p>\n

We smoked for quite a long time and every smoker knows that the first inhale is the best of a newly lit cigarette.<\/p>\n

When I’m at work it no longer bothers me when I’m yapping outside with colleagues and they are having a cigarette.<\/p>\n

In fact, the more I continue to smell it the happier I am that I no longer have this habit.<\/p>\n

There have been many times over the course of the winter that we both have been thankful to not have to stand out in the cold just to get our fix.<\/p>\n

Addicting, you bet it was, but breaking the habit was the easy part the hard part is sticking to it.<\/p>\n

Life Insurance For Smokers<\/h2>\n

\"HOW-SMOKING-AFFECTED-OUR-LIFE-INSURANCE-PREMIUM\"The health benefits of quitting smoking were our top priority followed by monetary gains by discontinued expenses of $200 on cigarette purchases each month.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the year that added up to more than $2000<\/strong> that we willfully just blew away on smokes.<\/p>\n

With the costs of smokes in 2019 near $16 a pack in Canada that cost has almost tripled to over $5000 a year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

One motivation to keep living the smoke-free lifestyle is when we see friends who smoke and their constant “need”<\/strong> to have one.<\/p>\n

Smoking Addiction<\/h2>\n

We can see how smoking addiction can take over someone’s life like it did ours and it wasn’t easy to butt out.<\/p>\n

However, one thing we don’t do is talk about quitting smoking to those that smoke unless they bring it up.<\/p>\n

Honestly, when we smoked we knew what we were doing, we’re not idiots and neither are those that are addicted to smoking.<\/p>\n

I’m sure there are many smokers online who are going to read this blog post and wish that they too could give up smoking today.<\/p>\n

They can, but they need to have a will to succeed and a desire to live.<\/p>\n

That’s what came over us, not someone telling us we had to quit smoking.<\/p>\n

I don’t think we initially set out to become a smoker (I mean, who does?) but now know it was a mistake that did cost us in many ways.<\/p>\n

Quitting Smoking And A Reduced Life Insurance Premium<\/h2>\n

When we initially quit we had our yearly review with our financial advisor whom we told about us quitting smoking and our desire to live a healthier lifestyle.<\/p>\n

He was just as happy as our doctor was about it and not only from the health benefits aspect.<\/p>\n

He told us that if we could stay smoke-free for one full year that we could be re-assessed and potentially listed as non-smokers.<\/p>\n

If accepted they would put us in a new class and a new life insurance policy were drawn up.<\/p>\n

How exciting is that if we can potentially save more money instead of blowing it away?<\/p>\n

We both started with life insurance<\/a> about 4 years ago with a 25-year term life policy<\/strong> just to cover our bases in case something should happen.<\/p>\n

As long as the house and funeral costs were paid we were happy enough with that.<\/p>\n

We didn’t need to have millions of dollars in life insurance plus we didn’t have any dependents at the time like we do today.<\/p>\n

This was another motivation and what we needed to continue through not smoking or wanting to pick one up and light it throwing all our hard work down the toilet.<\/p>\n

It only takes one cigarette<\/strong> to set us back and we knew that so we had to plan our journey to quit smoking properly.<\/p>\n

However, it was always in the back of our minds about saving a bit of money in our budget<\/a> because we’re always looking for ways to improve.<\/p>\n

We had no idea how much money we could save on our life insurance premium so we waited for one year to pass.<\/p>\n

Smoke-Free For A Year – Life Insurance Premium Party<\/h2>\n

One year had passed and we booked our annual meeting with our financial advisor to celebrate our life insurance premium party.<\/p>\n

He had all the paperwork ready for us to fill out for our new life insurance policy when we arrived.<\/p>\n

I’ll admit we said a couple of times that we better get a good reduction in rate with all the paperwork we had to fill out again.<\/p>\n

We were skeptical yet optimistic because we knew that we never cheated when we quit smoking, not once.<\/p>\n

There was no testing done although if they required a nicotine test<\/strong> we would have been more than happy to oblige.<\/p>\n

In fact, we almost wanted them to check because we were so proud of our accomplishment.<\/p>\n

Telling The Truth To Your Insurance Company<\/h2>\n

Even though the paperwork was somewhat daunting but nothing is as bad after you fill out pages and pages of forms to become a Permanent<\/a> Res<\/a>ident<\/a> in Canada<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was extremely important to make sure that our medical history was accurate and up to date for Manulife Insurance, our provider.<\/p>\n

Those horror stories when people file a claim for life insurance only to find out something was missing or inaccurate in the policy is scary.<\/p>\n

We didn’t want to be those people so we took the time to make sure everything was correct.<\/p>\n

They told us that the underwriters would likely call our family doctor which was perfectly fine with us.<\/p>\n

Once that was done we went on our way in hopes of hearing back soon the results and to find out the cost of our life insurance premium.<\/p>\n

Smoke-Free Life Insurance Premium Costs<\/h2>\n

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We received a phone call last week from our financial advisor who wanted to congratulate us on being approved<\/strong> and we are now rated non-smokers in our new life insurance policy.<\/p>\n

The best part is that the new monthly life insurance premium<\/strong> for our budget has decreased significantly.<\/p>\n

Here is the cost breakdown:<\/strong><\/p>\n