Can smokers get life insurance?

Yes! Smokers can get life insurance, however, you will probably have to pay a little more than non-smokers. Read ahead to find out more about getting life insurance when you’re a smoker!

Social smoking and life insurance

If you find yourself smoking on the odd occasion after you've had a few drinks with friends or family, you probably consider yourself to be a non-smoker. However in the eyes of the life insurance providers, this is not the case.

UK providers typically ask if you have smoked any tobacco products in the last 12 months and if so, the amount. If the answer to this is yes, then your life insurance provider will class you as a smoker.

Is vaping classed as smoking?

Although vaping is still backed by some medical professionals as a better alternative to smoking, it doesn’t work the same in the world of life insurance as vaping still counts as smoking in the eyes of most insurers!

When you initially arrange your life insurance policy, you will be asked a series of questions about your health and lifestyle choices. One of these questions will ask you about your nicotine/tobacco intake on a weekly or monthly basis.

Bending the truth

If you’re considering not being 100% honest about your smoker status when applying for life insurance - this is your sign not to.

Being dishonest about your age, smoker status, medical history, amongst other things when applying for life insurance is called misinformation, and is unfortunately quite common.

By lying about your medical disclosures when arranging your life insurance, you could invalidate a potential future claim. One of the main motivations behind getting life insurance for most people is to protect your loved ones but by not being honest on your application, you could stop your loved ones from receiving this money.

Cheaper life insurance premiums?

If you’re a smoker and needed that extra push to quit, you’ll be happy to hear that by quitting for just 12 months, you could save money on your monthly life insurance premiums. This is because after one year, most life insurance providers consider you to be a non-smoker.

Last year during Stoptober, we realised that so many people remain unaware that you can save money on your life insurance by quitting. So to combat this, we created an easy to use smoking calculator.

Our smoking calculator can help you work out just how much you are spending on smoking and you can even find out an estimate of how much your monthly premium could be if you quit smoking. Click the button below to learn more, and find out how much you could save on your life insurance premiums simply by quitting smoking!

Thinking of quitting?

Stopping smoking can be really tough, and it takes a lot of determination and will power. People quit for all sorts of reasons; to save money, after a recent health scare, or to quit just for the sake of quitting!

Whatever your reason for giving up smoking, if you’re needing more inspiration to quit, you might find our smoking blog useful. Click here to read up on how one of our team here at Caspian decided to ditch the cigs. It's full of useful tips and tricks to help you quit, and might give you the extra push that you need!