Life Insurance Risk Factors and What You Can Do About Them

Your life insurance premium is based on quite a few different factors, each of which can raise or lower the final rate depending on whether the statistics in play tell the insurance carrier that the factor will increase or decrease the likelihood that they are eventually going to have to pay out on your policy.  When considering these factors, there are three that are very important, but, in many cases, there are things you can do to reduce their final impact.

Risk Factor 1: Health

One of the most powerful components of high risk life insurance is the state of your health.  If you are in poor health, overweight, diabetic, or have any of a number of different chronic medical conditions, your perceived risk of early death is going to rise significantly.

What Can Be Done?

Improving your overall health is the only way to reduce your risk when it comes to life insurance.  If you are obese or even overweight, taking the time to lose weight can help a lot.  If you are diabetic or have high blood pressure, take steps to bringing your levels into a well controlled area.

Risk Factor 2: Lifestyle

Your choice of hobbies and profession play a huge factor in determining your risk level.  If you have a very dangerous job or if you engage in extreme sports or other hobbies that are inherently very dangerous, you are probably going to have to purchase high risk life insurance.

What Can Be Done?

Lifestyle changes can bring about a significant reduction in your perceived risk, though the changes may be difficult.  However, if you simply cannot give up extreme sports or hobbies, you will likely have little choice but to purchase the special risk life insurance provided.

Risk Factor 3: Credit

When it comes to high risk life insurance, sometimes there are factors that seemingly have nothing to do with your health.  While it is unlikely that there is any causation between bad credit and early death, life insurance carriers will consider someone of bad credit to be of higher risk.

What Can Be Done?

Improving your credit rating is the only thing you can do here.  Take steps to never miss a payment on not only your loans and credit cards, but also your utility payments.  Find a no credit credit card and use it frequently, being careful to never spend more than you can immediately pay off.  Speak to a credit counselor to find out what else can be done.