Life insurance discounts you need to know about
Life insurance discounts are a simple way to lower monthly premiums. These discounts can be divided into four major types:
1. Safety discounts: These are discounts you can get if the insurance company sees that you take good care of yourself. These include lower rates for those who don’t smoke, drink in moderation, and follow a regular exercise routine. Your life insurance costs may be lower if you’re married. That’s because insurance companies have found that married people don’t tend to die prematurely as often.
2. Bundling discounts: These are discounts you can get if you buy multiple types of insurance with the same company. Getting multiple policies (car, auto, life) with the same company may get you a discount.
3. Group discounts: These are discounts you can get if you belong to a certain association or profession. Common group discounts include those for military members, teachers, and government employees. Other specialized professional discounts include ones for farmers, clergy, physicians, and dentists. If you work in a dangerous profession, it’s important for you to check with your employer and look into a group discount.
4. Loyalty discounts: These discount rewards customers who stay with the same insurance company for a long time.
In addition, there are hundreds of factors that go into determining the cost of your life insurance premiums. Here are a few more specific examples of life insurance discounts you could qualify for:
· Smoking: If you've never smoked tobacco, you'll get a discount on life insurance. If you currently smoke, quitting can lower your rates. Smoking marijuana is currently a life insurance gray area that can raise or lower your rates (depending on if you smoke recreationally or medicinally, for example).
· Alcohol use: Abstaining or drinking in moderation is a healthy choice that will translate into life insurance savings.
- Exercise: Keeping an exercise routine keeps you healthier and helps you live longer. Insurance carriers may offer their own fitness program you can enroll in.
- Hobbies: Skydiving, bull-riding, and round-the-world sailing may be fun, but they're risky. Safer hobbies will lessen your insurance risk and lower your premium .
- Job: Office jobs carry less risk than dangerous industries like logging, fishing, or farming. These jobs can get you a discount on life insurance.
- Marital status: Being married helps you live longer on average, so it helps keep your premiums lower.
- Age: Not surprising, the biggest risk factor for death is age. Buying insurance at a younger age will save you on premiums.
- Gender: Women generally pay cheaper life insurance premiums on average than men do. Women tend to live longer, so they're less of a risk for life insurance carriers.
- Location: Life insurance carriers collect detailed data on the risks and benefits of different parts of the country. Living in healthier areas will save money on premiums.
- No illnesses or genetic conditions: Any health condition that increases your risk of premature death will make you more expensive to insure.
- Healthy family history: Some insurers take family histories of heart disease, stroke and more into their calculations.
- Bundling with other financial services: Most life insurance policies also offer other financial planning and investment services. You can usually bundle these just like you would bundle multiple insurance policies.
- Group insurance: Buying life insurance through your workplace means your risks are being bundled with a bunch of other people's, which can work in your favor if you're particularly risky.
- Military and veterans: If you're an active service member, you are likely to struggle to find a cost-effective policy from a civilian life insurance policy. Veterans can often get insurance discounts in recognition of their service. The spouses and children of veterans and active-duty military personnel may also qualify.
- Teachers: Teacher discounts are among the most common insurance discounts available. They may be offered through a union, employer, or through an insurance carrier.
- Paying your premiums yearly instead of monthly: Insurance companies like it when you pay up front instead of month-to-month. Switching to paying once a year or every six months can significantly lower your premiums if you can afford it.
- Premium amount discounts: Buying a life insurance policy at a nice round number like 100,000, 250,000, or 500,000 can be cheaper than buying insurance near those numbers.