Healthy Living Habits That Can Lower Your Health Insurance Rates
Most adults are well aware that health care costs have been skyrocketing for years, driving up health insurance rates in the process. Your own healthy living habits can go a long way toward keeping your rates as low as possible and saving you money in the long run. Here are some of the most important steps you can take to get healthy.
– Get your weight in check. If you are overweight or even obese, you know you hate to go clothes shopping or even look in the mirror in the morning. But looks are not the only thing affected by excess fat: health insurance coverage can actually be denied if your weight exceeds an established threshold. Insurance underwriters often use the BMI (Body Mass Index) calculation as an estimate of how much body fat an applicant may have. If you have a BMI between 29 and 43, your rates will be higher; if your BMI is over 43, you may very well be denied coverage altogether.
– Stop smoking and do it now. Insurers know that the potential health costs for smokers are substantially higher than they are for non-smokers, and if you choose to smoke those costs will definitely be passed on to you through higher premiums. Smoking may lead to diseases such as COPD and lung cancer as well as a variety of other ailments. It is harmful both to you and to those around you who inhale smoke second-hand. Smoking is not just a bad habit: it’s expensive as well.
– Get off your butt and start getting more exercise. Even if you lead a sedentary work life, there are definite steps you can take to ramp up the amount of movement you make during the day. Walk instead of driving; take stairs instead of the elevator; park far away from the building entrance instead of taking the nearest spot; take power walks during your lunch hour to get your endorphins going for the rest of the afternoon; set a regular time for going to the gym and stick with it; play outside with your kids after you get home from work.
– Cut back on alcoholic beverages. Having an occasional drink will not adversely affect your health, but chronic over-indulgence will. Those who have two or more alcoholic drinks a day will significantly reduce their life spans and will face the likelihood of having to pay more in health insurance premiums.
Keeping health insurance costs down is really a matter of common sense. If we insist on keeping bad habits that affect our health, we should expect to have higher premiums or be denied coverage altogether as a result. If high premiums are a concern, we should take every needed step to start lowering them.
Absolute Insurance Group (http://www.absolutelifequote.com) is an independent insurance agent, which provides North Carolina residents with all types of Charlotte health insurance coverage from the top carriers in the country. Art Gib is a freelance writer.