A lifestyle choice is an indicator of good or bad health. Irrespective of being aware of this fact, many people choose to engage in damaging lifestyles and prefer to characterise themselves through poor dietary habits, lack of physical activity, extreme alcohol consumption, and tobacco use.
These unhealthy lifestyle habits contribute significantly to the heightened risk of chronic diseases, diabetes, and certain cancers, leading to extensive medical interventions and high healthcare costs.
As a result, individuals with unhealthy lifestyles may face elevated premiums or limited coverage options when seeking health insurance.
In this article, we shall see how lifestyle choices elevate your health insurance so you can compare health insurance aspects and start making better choices for yourself.
How Lifestyle Factors Affect Your Health Insurance Coverage
1. Sedentary lifestyle and BMI
While evaluating your medical coverage, health insurance companies will examine what kind of lifestyle you live. For instance, if you have an active lifestyle that involves yoga, running, walking, sports dance, or any such physical activity of the kind, and will provide good health insurance coverage at less premium cost.
Further, you make yourself eligible for rewards, which include free doctor consultations, diagnostic tests, medicines, a discount on renewal premiums, etc., and the reverse goes when you don’t have such a lifestyle, i.e., a higher premium with less coverage.
They also take into consideration BMI-
| Body Mass Index (BMI) | Premium Adjustment |
| Up to a specific range | Regular premium, similar to other applicants |
| Higher than normal | Higher premium compared to other applicants |
| Substantially higher | The insurance company may reject the application |
2. Unhealthy habits
Another essential aspect that affects your online health insurance plan is your habits. There are differential health insurance plans for smokers and non-smokers, so if you are a smoker, you tend to pay a higher premium for your health insurance plan.
The medical insurance policy will take into account how many cigarettes you smoke daily, whether you consume alcohol or not, and how much alcohol you drink daily.
3. Occupation
Your occupation also influences your insurance premium. For instance, people working in a bank, IT company, retail shop, etc., are rated as traditional risks.
However, people working in dangerous occupations, such as mines, chemical industries, building sites, plants fabricating arms/ammunition/explosives, etc., are not rated on traditional risk rates. These people are deemed higher risk than others and, therefore, charged a higher premium.
4. Pre-existing Diseases
Any pre-existing diseases, such as disabilities, cancer, blood pressure, thyroid, etc, also adversely affect your health insurance plan premium.
You will find 1-4 years of standard waiting period before you can make a claim for treatment of pre-existing diseases.
5. Family Medical History
Suppose there is a record of illnesses in the family’s blood, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. The insurance company may view your case as riskier than standard cases.
You can only do a little in this issue except keep a healthy lifestyle so that you don’t fall prey to diseases inherited from your family.
6. Geographical Location
The place where you stay may impact the premium that you have to pay. For instance, the regions that experience high pollution like Delhi are vulnerable to respiratory illnesses. Then, the cost of treatment in metros and Tier I cities is more than in Tier II and III cities. Therefore, the cost may be extra for these cities.
Also, people staying in larger cities with hectic lifestyles may be more vulnerable to lifestyle conditions than those in smaller towns.
The insurance company may split the country into distinct zones based on different parameters like the ones noted above. If you are from one of these areas, the insurance company may view your case as riskier than others and charge the premium for health insurance plans accordingly.
7. Age
The insurance company classifies people into various age frames. The premium rises as an individual’s age grows with every passing year, and they shift from one age bracket to another. The premium growth applies to all individuals belonging to a specific age bracket.
Age is not something you can control; therefore you cannot do anything about the growth in premium due to the increase in age.
Nevertheless, with increasing age, you may be helpless to various illnesses. Therefore, you may embrace a healthy lifestyle.
Conclusion
It is best to engage yourself in a good, healthy lifestyle by adopting some hobby, which requires you to be physically active and mentally agile, as a healthy lifestyle leads to the fullest life. Moreover, a healthier lifestyle can help you get better health insurance coverage at an affordable premium.
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