There are many issues that affect your health insurance premiums. If you have an unhealthy lifestyle or any bad habits like alcohol or smoking, your health insurance provider may charge you a higher premium than others or even reject your application. Lifestyle plays an important role in whether the insurance provider will accept your application and at what premium. So, let us understand what lifestyle factors affect your affordable healthcare plan premium and what you can do to improve it so that it does not impact your premium adversely.
Sedentary Lifestyle
When evaluating your insurance application, the insurance company will assess whether you are living a sedentary or active lifestyle. Active lifestyle involves running, walking, undertaking cardio, weight training, yoga, sports, functional training, dance, and other physical activities. Affordable healthcare plans reward people for living an active lifestyle with reward points. These points can be redeemed for doctor consultations, medicines, diagnostic tests, discounts on premium renewals, etc.
But if you have a sedentary lifestyle, the insurance provider may charge you a higher premium than other applicants. So, if your body mass index is higher than the normal range, the company may charge a higher premium than other applicants. The other factors evaluated when assessing your application may include your diet, sleep hours and pattern, whether you are involved in recreational activities, etc. All of these lifestyle factors play a pivotal role in determining your health insurance premium.
Bad Habits
All insurance providers have different rates for smokers and non-smokers. So, you need to pay a higher premium for your insurance plan if you are a smoker. The company may ask you about how many cigarettes you smoke daily. Also, if you consume alcohol, the provider may ask you about how much alcohol you consume daily.
Drinking, smoking, chewing tobacco, etc. will increase the risk of illnesses like ulcers,cancer, liver and lung diseases, and heart ailments. Hence, insurance providers rate people who smoke or consume alcohol as high risk and thus charge a higher premium in order to offer health insurance coverage for them.
Occupation
Your occupation can also impact your health insurance premium. People working in the IT sector, banks, retail shops, etc., are considered as standard risk. However, people working in hazardous occupations like chemical industries, factories manufacturing explosives, arms, and ammunition, construction sites, etc., are not rated as standard risks since they are at a higher risk than other professionals and are hence charged a higher premium accordingly.
Hobbies
Some people are involved in high-risk hobbies like scuba diving, mountain hiking, car/bike racing, or other adventure sports. For people involved in these activities, the insurance provider will add additional charges to your application. This means you will be charged a higher premium compared to others.
Pre-Existing Diseases
If you have a pre-existing lifestyle or any other disease, it will affect your health insurance plan premium as you have to pay a higher premium than others. There may also be a 1-4-year waiting period before you can make any claim of pre-existing diseases. Today the number of people suffering from lifestyle diseases like obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, thyroid, etc., is continuously rising. The prevalence of these diseases is due to many reasons like people’s unhealthy diets, stress, sedentary lifestyles, bad habits, long working hours, etc.
Family Medical History
If there is a history of illnesses like heart disease, cancer, or diabetes running in your family, the insurance provider may consider your application to be riskier than standard cases. Though you can’t do much in this case, you can still maintain a healthy lifestyle so that you are at a lower risk of developing these conditions.
Age
Insurance plans categorize people into different age brackets. The premium usually increases as the age of the individual increases with every passing year. The premium increase applies to people in a specific age bracket. Since age is not in your control, you cannot do anything about the increase in premium due to the increase in age. Also, since you may be vulnerable to various illnesses with increasing age, make sure you adopt a healthy lifestyle to keep your health insurance premiums in check.
So, we have seen the various lifestyle factors that may impact your health insurance premium adversity. However, following a healthy lifestyle will keep your health insurance premiums in check. Following a healthy diet by reducing and avoiding refined foods, as well as doing regular exercise, can help significantly.
Engage yourself in some hobbies like gardening, dancing, sports, etc., that will keep you active. Keep the stress levels in control by maintaining a work-life balance, getting involved in community activities, taking regular breaks from work, practicing meditation and mindfulness, etc., and avoiding bad habits like drinking alcohol, smoking, etc.
The Bottom Line
Following a healthy lifestyle will not only allow you to enjoy life to the fullest but also get some significant savings in your health insurance premiums. Insurance companies nowadays also reward you for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. You can use these reward points for various activities, like getting a discount on your insurance renewal premium.
Disclaimer: MPB.Health memberships are a non-insurance solution designed to provide access to healthcare services. To determine if this aligns with your specific needs, we recommend consulting a certified expert advisor.
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