Last Updated: April 2021
Applying for life insurance using a vape or electronic cigarette can be confusing and intimidating.
Vaping and e-cigarette use are technically considered high-risk life insurance but it is important to know that you have plenty of options to help you secure coverage.
If you’ve ever attempted to get life insurance coverage as a smoker, you know that it isn’t cheap. In fact, you’ll probably be paying more than double that of a non-smoker your age in the same health as you otherwise.
Though some people considering vaping or smoking e-cigs to be less harmful to your health than smoking a traditional cigarette or cigar, is it less harmful to your life insurance premiums?
In this article, we’ll cover how life insurance underwriters view electronic cigarettes and what you can do to ensure you get access to the best life insurance rates.
- Can You Get Life Insurance While Using Electronic Cigarettes?
- Underwriting: What Life Insurance Companies Will Ask About Your Vaping and Use of E-Cigarettes
- How to Access Non-Smoker Rates with Electronic Cigarette Use and Vaping
- How to Apply for Life Insurance While Using Electronic Cigarettes and Vaping
Life Insurance is Boring. Let’s Get To The Root Of It! Here are the key takeaways…
It is possible to obtain life insurance if you use vapes or e-cigarettes. Most life insurance companies will classify you into smoker rates and will also inquire about other pre-existing medical conditions such as weight, hypertension, and even diabetes. Work with an independent life insurance agent to secure the lowest rates possible.
Can You Get Life Insurance While Using Electronic Cigarettes?
Yes, you can! Your rates may be higher than non-smoker rates, but finding the right company that will view your risk the most favorably is the key.
One of the biggest trends in the smoking community is electronic cigarettes. While smoking is on the decline, its decreasing popularity comes alongside a monumental rise in the popularity of electronic cigarettes.
Smoking is expensive, and those expenses extend all the way to your life insurance premiums.
- E-cigarettes were created to model the experience of smoking without the associated risks of smoking.
- Vaping, the process equivalent to smoking, involves the inhalation of the vapor created by the e-cigarette.
- The liquid you vape, often referred to as e-juice, is composed of nicotine, glycerine, and propylene glycol, along with whatever flavor you choose.
- In some cases, vaping is used by smokers to help them stop smoking, but it is also becoming a popular alternative for young adults who have never smoked before.
Experts and users of e-cigarettes alike are on the fence about the long-term effects it has on your health.
Cigarettes have been around for ages, so experience and sustained research support the practice being detrimental to your health as well as your lifespan. Electronic cigarettes, on the other hand, are a new development in the tobacco world.
Having just hit the U.S. market in the mid-2000s and becoming wildly popular over the last few years, e-cigs are a bit more challenging to definitively classify as life-threatening. E-cigarettes do contain far fewer of the dangerous chemicals you encounter in tobacco smoke, but there is not enough data to speculate how it will affect users over the entirety of their lives.
While toxin levels are significantly lower in comparison to those found in tobacco smoke, there could be other risks associated with e-cigarettes. Most life insurance companies are among the uncertain population when it comes to vaping, which could impact the costs of premiums for e-cigarette users.
Underwriting: What Life Insurance Companies Will Ask About Your Vaping and Use of E-Cigarettes
When a life insurance company agrees to underwrite your policy, they’re taking a risk, even if you are in good health and averse to risky habits and hobbies.
When you apply for life insurance, you enter the underwriting process, which is basically used to determine just how much of a risk you are to your life insurance provider.
If the odds of the company actually having to pay out your policy are high, then your cost of coverage will be high as well. In some cases, you may be denied coverage altogether.
How Life Insurers View Electronic Cigarettes
So how do life insurance underwriters view electronic cigarettes and vaping?
Because of the uncertainty shrouding the health effects of vaping, many life insurance companies are choosing to stay on the safe side by charging their vaping clients the same premiums as their smoking ones.
Currently, every life insurance company on the market will give you “Smoker” rates even if you use an electronic cigarette, except for one company.
There is currently one life insurance company offering their Standard Plus non-smoker rates to e-cigarette users with the stipulation that there’s been no “regular” cigarette use in the past 12 months.
With that said, they allow you to be positive for nicotine or cotinine in your life insurance medical exam and still get these non-smoker rates.
This is absolutely huge news for the e-cigarette community because you can cut your life insurance premiums in half just by using this life insurance company.
How Life Insurance Companies Classify Rates
What measures do life insurance underwriters use to assess your health and lifestyle?
First, they turn to you. One of your jobs in the application process is to answer general questions about your overall health, habits, and lifestyle, as honestly as possible.
Paired with your answers, you will be expected to schedule a medical examination and share the results with the insurance company (unless you opt for a no-exam policy, which will be more expensive).
Please note that it is critical, to tell the truth about your use of e-cigarettes.
If you pass away during the term of your coverage and it is discovered that you vaped regularly, your family’s claim to your policy could be disputed and denied.
The company will also look at your height and weight, your family health history, your use of tobacco, drugs, and alcohol, your health conditions, your profession, and even your hobbies (skydiving and rock climbing, for instance).
The riskier these factors are, the more they impact your premiums and overall access to coverage.
Hypertension, diabetes, obesity, heart conditions, and other dangerous illnesses, or a family history of cancer with genetic links can impact your rates. One of the top factors that will shape your rates is tobacco use.
Based on all the criteria from your application, the company will place you in a rate class ranging between Preferred Plus, Preferred, Standard Plus, Standard, Substandard, and additional smoking classes.
How to Access Non-Smoker Rates with Electronic Cigarette Use and Vaping
If you’re wondering how you can access non-smoking rates as an electronic cigarette user, just give us a quick call and we will fill you in on everything you need to know.
You can also fill out a form here on our website and we’ll provide the company’s name and quotes for their product. It’s a household name you’ve heard of, one that is very respected in the industry.
If you’re using a personal vaporizer or e-cig, your best rates will always be with this company since they give non-smoker rates to all smokeless tobacco users.
Again, it is very important that you admit the e-cigarette use on your life insurance application. You’re likely to test positive for cotinine and we don’t want the underwriters thinking you smoke cigarettes.
The key to getting the best rates on a good policy is to research life insurance providers and to be completely honest in your application.
How to Apply for Life Insurance While Using Electronic Cigarettes and Vaping
As of right now, there is only one company that offers non-smoking rates to clients who vape, but that could change in the future.
We are an independent life insurance comparison service, so if any other company decides they want to want to give non-smoker rates to electronic cigarette users, we’ll update this article to keep you informed.
If you’re interested in quotes from this company, please submit a request through our website or call us at 888-430-7668 and we’ll be happy to take care of you.
We have the technology to submit this life insurance company’s applications electronically, so there’s no stressful or time-consuming paperwork for you and the process is very quick and easy.
Here’s the bottom line: Don’t pay smoker rates for life insurance with e-cigs! You don’t have to when there is a very well known, highly rated, and respected life insurance company that wants your business and knows you’re not a bigger risk than cigarette smokers.
Work with an independent life insurance agent to secure the lowest rates possible for your specific needs today!
Also, be sure to check out our other guides below to learn more about how different types of tobacco use can affect life insurance approval and rates:
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