Lost Weight and Still on Overweight Persons Life Insurance Rates?
6/13/2012
You’ve lost weight and are excited to apply for more affordable life insurance. Your agent told you that you’d pay less if you reached this goal. However, your premium did not go down as much as you hoped! What happened?
It helps to know a few guidelines about how weight loss and life insurance rates.
Stability of Weight and Overweight Life Insurance
If you were overweight and lose weight, life insurance companies are going to evaluate your weight loss to determine if it stable, or if you are a yo-yo dieter who may gain it all back in a few months. A sustained weight loss for over one year will bring your rates down to the category you hoped. In some situations, weight loss can “cure” sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, or heart disease, which also will lower your rate.
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During the first year of a large weight loss (loss of over 20 pounds), however, most companies will calculate half the weight you lost and add it to your current weight. If you lost 50 pounds total, the insurance company will look at it as a 25 pound loss during the first year. This might still make a big impact on your rate. Losing weight and keeping it off is hard, and rates go up each year as you age. So we recommend getting your rate locked in, then just reapply later on if you keep it off or lose more.
Gastric Bypass and Life Insurance
If your weight loss is due to gastric bypass, the insurance company will also want to make sure you have fully recovered and have no negative side effects from the surgery itself. So again, a one year wait is not unreasonable before expecting a rate reduction. However, there are No Exam policies you can get in the interim, to protect you while you wait for a lower rate. You can get those in a lower face amount so they are still affordable, and so you are not unisured if the unexpected should happen. Then reward yourself with the lower life insurance rates after your weight loss is stabilized.