Lifestyle

Smoking

The client’s smoker status is taken into account when underwriting due to the different risks each status presents. We use three smoker statuses for underwriting purposes and these are detailed below.

Smoker

A smoker is someone who last smoked cigarettes or cigars, used a pipe or any other form of tobacco or nicotine products, including e-cigarettes or nicotine replacement products, in the last 12 months.

Ex-Smoker

An ex-smoker is someone who last smoked cigarettes or cigars, used a pipe or any other form of tobacco or nicotine products, including e-cigarettes or nicotine replacement products over 12 months ago but less than 5 years ago.

Non-Smoker

A non-smoker is someone who last smoked cigarettes or cigars, used a pipe or any other form of tobacco or nicotine products, including e-cigarettes or nicotine replacement products more than 5 years ago.

Failure to declare the correct smoker status could result in non-payment of a claim.

Smoking can impact terms in various ways, the most common being:

Increased premium.
Increase to the rating for certain conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart disease.
Being unable to offer terms when in combination with an associated medical condition.

Alcohol

In moderation, alcohol consumption can be relatively harmless and have no impact on the terms we offer. Terms could be affected where the consumption is deemed excessive. Excessive drinking may be described as:

Hazardous drinking

The quantity and pattern of alcohol use could be deemed excessive without any impact on physical, psychological or social wellbeing.

Harmful drinking

The quantity and pattern of alcohol use is deemed excessive with some impact on physical, psychological or social wellbeing as well as medical intervention.

Alcohol dependence

A pattern of use with difficulties controlling alcohol-taking behaviour, tolerance, physiological withdrawal, persisting use following medical intervention.

Unlike most companies, we do not assess alcohol use by simply looking at the weekly consumption of units. We ask for the number of days drinking per week and the typical number of drinks taken on those days. We believe this gives a more accurate and fairer assessment of the clients alcohol use.

Drugs

Drug use/abuse can have a significant impact on health, this is why we take it into consideration when underwriting. This could be the abuse of legal or illegal drugs, or simply the use of illegal drugs.

Historical drug use/abuse does not always prevent us offering terms, the terms will depend on the type of drug used, frequency of use and time since last used. Terms could also be impacted by other associated risks such as smoking, alcohol use and some medical conditions.

Terms are unlikely for current use of illegal drugs.