The More You Weigh, the More You Pay

We've all heard the reports about the epidemic of obesity in this country, which has severe implications for public health. But we rarely hear about what obesity means for our wallets.

The impact is not lost on the life insurance industry, however. Obesity causes at least 300,000 excess deaths in the U.S. and is the second leading cause of unnecessary death, according to the American Obesity Association.

If you've ever applied for a life insurance policy, you know that the insurance company asks you all kinds of questions about your health. It's using this information to determine the risk it's assuming by writing your policy. The greater the health risk you are, the greater the chance that you'll die younger, and the insurer will have to pay out the death benefit on your policy. Consequently, the more you weigh, the more they charge.

Just how much can being overweight cost you? To find out, I went to insure.com, a popular life insurance Web site. I entered the same information four times: healthy 6-foot tall, 40-year-old male with good cholesterol, good blood pressure who doesn't smoke and has no family history of heart disease, diabetes, etc. The only thing I varied was the weight.

The More You Weigh, The More You Pay Annual premiums for a healthy, 40-year-old male.
Weight	Avg. Annual Premium ($)	Cost Over 20 Years ($)
180	469	5,628
210	572	6,864
240	920	11,034
270	1,351	16,212
Source: Insure.com

All else being equal, weight had a dramatic effect on the price of a 20-year, level-premium term life policy. In fact, someone who weighs 270 pounds will pay more than three times what someone weighing 180 pounds pays. Someone weighing 240 pounds pays more than twice as much.