Besides the money one pays when purchasing cigarettes, and the detrimental health effects they bring about, hence leading to more expensive trips to the pharmacy and the doctor, smoking leads to ridiculously higher life insurance policies. Smokers up to the age of 40 will pay as much as 113 per cent extra for their policy, or approximately 83 per cent more than non smokers. “Insurers will consider a number of different risk factors when calculating life insurance premiums, including smoking,” explained Matt Sanders, life cover spokesman for Gocompare.com.
Additionally the older smokers are when they take out their cover, the greater the additional cost, with smokers aged 40 and above facing premiums that are double the amount of their nonsmoking peers. A 25-year-old taking out a £200,000 25-year level-term policy would normally pay a monthly premium of about £6.87, giving a total policy cost of £2,061, while a smoker of the same age might be charged approximately £10.24, increasing the cost to £3,072.
Citizens from lower socioeconomic groups more likely to smoke
Another recent study conducted Scandinavia, found that in Finland, citizens belonging to lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to smoke than their peers in higher groups. “We know smoking has directly adverse effects on human health. Based on the study, it can be said that if this trend continues, so too will the growth of health inequalities,” said Otto Ruokolainen, an expert at the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and author of the study based on the findings indicating that this gap has already grown. The research also indicated that increasing tobacco prices is a motivating factor for smokers to quit.
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