How Does High Blood Pressure Affect Life Insurance Rates?

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  • Post last modified:October 14, 2020

As high blood pressure has several negative impacts on health, it also increases the cost of life insurance.

High blood pressure is a commonly found ailment these days in several ranges- mild to extreme.

Whilst we may not talk in detail about the causes of high blood pressure here but we must know that stress, anxiety, and social obligations make us all susceptible to the radar of high blood pressure for extremes.

We frequently see most of the senior citizens are suffering from high BP. Even, young people have also become a victim of it.

It can be fatal in itself or can lead to several alarming medical conditions such as kidney failure or dialysis, stroke, coronary artery disease, or back to back cardiac failures.

How Do the Life Insurance Companies Perceive Heart Attack?

how life insurance companies take heart attacks as risk factorAs we mentioned above that high blood pressure has become a common misery of people and therefore, life insurance companies have clearly understood its obligations.

They consider it as one of the high-risk factor conditions while issuing policies to their customers.

In many cases, high blood pressure would put a condition on your insurance policy about the health risks associated with your application.

Several applications get rejected given to the condition of the patient (if it is vulnerable) suffering from high blood pressure.

However, in other cases, the customers can easily apply for life insurance policies by just paying premiums slightly on the higher side.

Every insurance firm has indicated standard guidelines for patients who suffer from high blood pressure in different stages. Depending on their organization matrix each of them has a varying opinion for this medical human condition.

How Does High Blood Pressure Impact Our Life Insurance Premiums?

The premiums of life insurance policies tend to be higher for people who suffer from high blood pressure.

This condition implies a high risk for the insurance companies and hence they need to raise the prices of insurance premiums for such applications.

It is anticipated that high blood pressure can be a starting sign for severe ailments in the future (heart attack, stroke, coronary attack, etc.) which is a risky proposition for the insurance firms.

The life insurance companies have policies to look into the all-around health and physical state of applicants. It involves some legitimate questioning about lifestyle, ailments, family medical history or genetic diseases and habits including smoking, drinking alcohol and drugs, etc.

They account for a complete Body Mass Ratio and measure the BMI to assess your health status.

If there is a fluctuation in these ratios towards the higher side, you are questioned about your daily routine to check whether or not you are doing some physical exercises or other practical measures to keep yourselves fit and better.

In our previous articles, we have emphasized the significance of exercise and workouts that are necessary to get lower life insurance premiums.

Therefore, if you are a high blood pressure patient and wish to get better results from your situation, you must consult a physician to suggest you the best exercise such as mild walk and other appropriate workouts.

What should a person do to improvise his or her insurance policy premiums while suffering from high blood pressure?

As we discussed above, we can still opt for certain measures that will help in improving our physical state of health as well as reducing the rates of insurance premiums.

Let’s learn more about them

Get Treated the Right Way

There is no doubt that we understand the implications of high blood pressure but at times we tend to risk our own health by not investing in proper resources towards its treatment.

We meet various people who want to try ‘home remedies’ or some ‘astrological cures’ for the treatment of their health conditions.

This is because conditions like high blood pressure often have a slow impact and one doesn’t realize its implication unless something serious happens.

However, in this case, if you want to better out your insurance premiums we suggest our readers opt for proper medical treatment for their condition.

Instead of ignoring the symptoms, one must consult the efficient practitioner in their region at the urgent basis and discuss the range of high blood pressure affecting them (blood pressure exists in different ranges in humans depending on its stage).

If you take proper treatment there are higher chances of you getting better and your application getting accepted at the life insurance companies’ office!

Take proper treatment, get regular follow-ups, and do not miss out on your medicines and other treatment regimes.

Don’t Ignore Exercises and Other Physical Activities

Although we do not recommend high blood pressure patients to get involved in “just any vague” exercises as some of them may cause to elevate the condition yet we recommend you to take up a regular exercise routine best for your health.

A good practitioner, physical health trainer, physician, or your family doctor can be good sources to learn about various physical exercises relevant for high blood pressure patients.

At the same time if you ask from Google or other online search engines about proper exercises that can be taken up by high blood pressure patients, then you will get knowledge of various relative exercises.

In fact, there are online counselors these days who give you a fair idea of workouts and lifestyle that one must adapt to control high blood pressure.

If nothing else comes to your way at least start with a mild walking and yoga, such as pranayama every day. It will help you in reducing stress and take you one step further towards health.

If you can join some health club and get its certification, there is nothing better than this. You can present the health club certification and improvement report card to the insurance company at the time of applying for life insurance policy.

Eat with Care

One must opt for healthy eating methodologies while trying to reduce the scale of blood pressure count.

There are various types of food such as caffeine, highly fatty food, junk food, and excessively sweet and salty food, etc. Include fresh fruits and vegetables in the daily diet.

These things cleanse our internal system and help in attaining good health from various other perspectives as well.

Adopt Healthy Lifestyle Measures

A few bad habits can be a catalyst in aggravating high blood pressure. If the insurance companies will find out that the applicant is a patient of high blood pressure and gets indulged in bad lifestyle habits then they will straight away reject your life insurance application.

Some of these habits to note are- smoking, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, eating unhealthy food in uncontrollable amounts, and playing highly channelizing video games or other activities that can raise the aggression levels in the body.

Give up on all unhealthy lifestyle activities that can serve as a severe risk to your own health. Adopt a healthy and natural way of living to get health benefits as well as financial compensatory benefits too.

Take Proper Sleep

Stress can raise the chances of getting high blood pressure among people. Sleep is one of the simplest yet vital methods of keeping the stress away from your body.

Try to get a minimum of 6-10 hours of sleep every night. Sleep helps in revitalizing your body hormones and relaxes them for a fresh start when you wake up.

One more thing which should be associated with sleep is to get to bed early in the night and wake up early in the morning.

Timely routine helps in bringing justified sleep and the body easily gets used to the routine. Staying awake till late in the night only increases the extent of our stressful thoughts and we get little time to relax.

There are various other suggestions that may follow such as reducing unwanted excess weight, learning to relax and keep yourself calm during difficult situations, doing meditation to improve your state of health, and various therapies that can make you feel better.

However, we must know that controlling blood pressure and opting for a healthy lifestyle can help in earning the trust of the insurance company. They need to know how seriously you take care of your health and will not be a much bigger risk to their business.

Different insurance companies view high blood pressure with diversified perspectives. While some try to straightaway discard this medical condition to be insured, there are others who opt for a very optimistic view of this situation.

Therefore, choose to associate with the firm that can be a little generous and supportive of your situation. Do proper research to find out a suitable firm for buying a life insurance policy.

Conclusion

Life insurance companies look forward to reducing their risk in any given situation. In the case of high blood pressure patients, most of the companies have standard guidelines already laid down as this condition is very common these days.

The cost of a life insurance policy for high blood pressure patients is higher than the standard policy rates. The companies, in a bid to compensate for the assessed risk, raise the price of premiums that the customer needs to pay towards the policy.

However, if the client wants to reduce the rates of insurance premiums, then they must opt for healthy lifestyle routines and bring in some proofs for the company to assure them of your efforts and improvement statistics.

There are various insurance companies that are willing to support their customers and adopt a lenient view towards high blood pressure situation if it hasn’t reached an extremely severe stage.

Try to find the best insurance firm to get associated with by doing proper research through various sources such as agent, internet, media, etc. But bring your blood pressure under control and make genuine efforts toward good health to earn the best health and monetary benefits.

Linda Chavez

I'm a burial & senior life insurance expert, independent agent, Founder & CEO of Seniors Life Insurance Finder. I have been working in this sector since 2004 and established my own company in 2014. I have a team of seven members, and we are trying hard to share the knowledge we've gathered. We know how difficult often it is to find an affordable policy. Hence, we are doing our best to help you.