Heart Diseases and Insurance Premiums
When you apply for life insurance, your insurance company will look at all the risk factors. If you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or other risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, your premiums are likely to be very high. Besides risk factors, they will also take into account your height, weight, age and smoking status.
However, just because you have high blood pressure or other such symptoms, does not mean that you will be precluded from a premium rate. In such an event if you prove to your life insurance company that you are taking care of your health by going to the doctor, taking your medications as directed, and working on getting healthy, they may decide to bring down your rates.
A healthy life-style is also synonymous with keeping your total cholesterol level below 200, with LDL below 100. Ideal blood pressure is 120/80 to 140/90, because anything higher is considered low-level hypertension. Your age and gender are also big factors when it comes to determining acceptable blood pressure and cholesterol and thus deciding on how much to insure you at.
If you are diagnosed with any of these heart diseases and your doctor has prescribed medication, ensure that you follow the advice strictly. This will help to bring down your insurance premiums. However, if you don’t follow doctor’s orders, you will be penalized and charged a higher premium for life insurance. If your high cholesterol or blood pressure isn’t serious enough for you to be prescribed medications and you are trying to keep it under control, your life insurance company will not charge you higher premiums. In saying that if you are on medication to control high blood pressure or cholesterol, and you apply for life insurance, speak out and tell them the truth.
In most cases, to get life insurance you will be asked to take a medical exam. Exams are important, not only for obtaining the proper life insurance category, but also for opening people’s eyes to the potential risks for cardiovascular disease that they may pose. If your examination reveals negative information, your insurance agent will more than likely still offer you a standard premium—but that might be higher than what they had originally quoted you at pre-exam.