Private Health Insurance – An Incentive to Quit Smoking

Private health insurance could be the greatest incentive you have to get healthy and give up smoking. Premiums fall in price for people who have been non-smokers for at least a year, so you can save money as well as protecting your long-term health. This is how smoking can affect your private health insurance options.

Private Health Insurance – The Financial Costs of Smoking

Smoking isn’t just an expensive habit in the obvious sense of needing to buy cigarettes – it can cost in many other ways as well. From dry cleaning to tooth whitening products, those sneaky lunch time smokes can all add up. But there is another important cost that it can incur – namely the price of your private health insurance premiums. Smoking is regarded by private health insurance providers as a high-risk habit, likely to result in illness, general poor health and eventually death. Common diseases linked with smoking include lung cancer, emphysema, and cardiovascular disease. Around 114,000 people die each year in the UK from smoking-related diseases, with life expectancy reduced by seven to eight years in smokers. Here are some more facts about smoking that can affect your health insurance policy:

• The number of people aged 70 years or under who die from smoking-related diseases exceeds the deaths caused by breast cancer, AIDS, traffic accidents and drug addiction.
• Blood clots are two to four times more likely in smokers than non-smokers, due to the acceleration of the hardening and narrowing process in the arteries.
• Some forms of cardiovascular diseases include cerebral thrombosis, causing strokes and paralysis; kidney failure due to high blood pressure; and gangrene and amputation in the legs caused by blockage to the vascular supply.

With these facts in mind, it’s little wonder that you will be charged more for your private health insurance premiums if you smoke.

Private Health Insurance – Why Non-Smokers Benefit

It is clear that giving up smoking can not only help your health, but your bank balance too. Non-smokers are viewed as far less a health risk than smokers, and as a result are rewarded with lower private health insurance premiums. However, you can’t just give up smoking for a month and expect your health cover costs to drop. Health cover reductions are only made once you’ve been a strict non-smoker for one year, and can provide medical evidence to that effect. So if you want to benefit from private health insurance and want to reduce your costs, then throw out those cigarettes today.

Looking for Private Health Insurance? Speak to Right to Health

Right to Health is a leading UK health insurance intermediary, helping individuals and corporations find the best private health insurance cover. With access to the UK’s top health insurance companies, Right to Health has advised thousands of clients and can help you to get great health coverage for a competitive premium. Right to Health is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, which means that you can be confident that the recommendations you are given really are in your best interests. To find out more or to get a review of your current health insurance, call 08000 753 999 or click the Free Online Quote button at the top of the page.

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