Life insurance for overweight people

Nowadays people tend to weight more than 20 or 30 years ago. Moreover, it is not a secret that being overweight can lead to more severe health problems in the future. The most common illnesses are diabetes and various heart conditions. Thus, often being overweight is associated with leading not an unhealthy lifestyle that increases the possibility of having various illnesses, which lowers life expectancy of the person.

How life insurance companies treats overweight people

Life insurance companies usually also view such people as potentially having shorter life expectancy. Thus, as the risk of having to make a pay out is perceived to be higher, the life insurance providers are less willingly to give insurance policy for overweight person under favourable terms. If the person is obese, the insurance company can even decline the application for life insurance cover.

BMI

Before getting life insurance among the questions that are asked an individual will always see the ones about the height and weight. This information is relevant for the insurance companies as this data is used to calculate the Body Mass Index (BMI), which is the main indicator used to evaluate whether the person is overweight or not.

Average person’s BMI is about 23. However, the classification is as follows: those with BMI under 20 are considered being under weight, the ones with BMI from 20 to 25 having normal weight, persons with BMI over 25 are said to be overweight. Overweight classification may be divided even further as having BMI of more than 30 can be classified as being obese.

BMI calculation

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Everyone can calculate his or her BMI because it is not a very difficult task. Only two measures are used: height and weight. Formula for BMI is this one:
BMI = Weight/(Height^2)

However, it must be remembered that in this calculation height is used converted into meters and weight into kilograms. For example, if the person’s height is 180 cm and weight is equal to 85 kg, his BMI=85/(1,8^2)=26,2 and such person is classified as being overweight.

Moreover, from this formula we can easily derive another formula:

Height^2 * BMI = Weight

In other words, if the person’s height is 180 cm, then in order not to be overweight he needs to weight 1,8^2 * 25 = 81 kg, and if he weighs more than 1,8^2 * 30 = 97 kg then he is treated by the insurance company as being obese.

Difficulties suffered when gaining life Insurance for overweight people

Sometimes life insurance companies may treat overweight as one of the most risky factors. This may happen because of two reasons: first of all, being not in the best shape causes higher stress on a body and especially heart. Thus, heart diseases are more common among overweight people than among normal weight people. The same is also with diabetes.

Another reason s derived from the financial side. Though none of insurance company will declare that, however, the number of overweight people is very big in UK and in other countries and is increasing each year. Thus, it is financially very beneficial to charge higher premiums from a big part of the whole calculation.

However, this is just a speculation. Overweight people may pay up to 4 times higher premiums than average people. In other words, by selecting various quotes on the websites of the insurance companies it is possible to see that overweight people sometimes are charged drastically more. For example, if average premium is £12 a month for term life insurance, the person with BMI of higher than 30 may need to pay even £47 per month.

Moreover, if the person is not only overweight but also has other health problems such as diabetes or heart problems, it is likely that insurance company can even decline him as the risk for insurance company to pay the benefits in the future is even higher. Thus, having additional problems while at the same time being overweight usually has very negative impact while trying to get the insurance policy.

Solutions how to get life insurance

However, as there are a lot of insurance providers in UK and competition especially among those smaller is very big, it is always advisable to get proposals from as many companies as possible. There are life insurance providers who can offer pretty good terms despite of person being overweight.

Moreover, some insurance providers may offer life insurance where the person is given a responsibility not to gain more weight. He must visit doctor often, give information to insurance provider about his weight conditions an if he manages to maintain the weight in the agreed brackets, he can get insurance policy with premiums which are around average rates offered to insurance companies’ all clients.