Monday, December 30, 2013

Defining Risk Behavior And How It Affects Life Insurance Rates

Whether you engage in dangerous activities for business or pleasure, you risk your life. You are also affected financially since you pay higher premiums for your life insurance or even for your medical cover. In some rare cases, insurance companies might even deny you coverage, leaving you unprotected and exposed. To understand your term life insurance rates better, it is vital to know how insurance defines risk behavior or factors and how they affect your rates.

Defining behavior

Definition of risk behavior varies from one insurance company to another. In general, high-risk activities that most insurance carriers consider are motor racing sports, contact sports, wind surfing, water skiing, deep-sea diving, sky diving, triathlons, hang gliding and rollerblading. High-risk professions include law enforcement, roofing, construction, electrical installation and industrial machinery installation. If you engage in one or more of these activities and professions, it may be wise to shop around for an insurance company that offers the cheapest premium rates for life insurance.

Full disclosure

If you have any risk behavior in your life, you might be tempted to hide it from an insurance company when applying for a life policy. It is certainly not a good idea to try to hide such facts from your potential insurance carrier. First, it is illegal to do so and this could bring upon you plenty of legal problems when the insurance company discovers the truth. Secondly, your family may be denied needed insurance claim when you pass away even if the cause of death is not related to what you were hiding. In case of a medical cover, you can be denied of necessary aid for treatment if you lied about the facts. Full disclosure not only protects insurance carriers but also the policyholders.

Factor in new interests

As the years progress, times change and you find yourself accepting a new high-risk job or developing a new hobby that involves considerable life risk. When this happens, you will benefit if you contact your insurance carrier as soon as possible to ensure there is no lost claim later. If you think you will still be covered when you engage in a new high-risk activity, simply because you gave full disclosure back when you were buying your life policy, then you are terribly wrong. If you are going to engage in high-risk behavior only for a short time, you can take a short-term policy to protect yourself.

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