Can a history of substance abuse raise your life insurance rates?
By M.K. Guetersloh
Life Quotes, Inc.
The hard partying years after college may have been replaced by the calm of married life. But those past behaviors may haunt you like an unwanted call from a former sweetheart-especially when you try to buy life insurance.
In order to receive standard rates, most insurance experts agree that drug and alcohol abuse problems need to be behind you for a minimum of five years.
Excessive use of drugs and alcohol can cause a number of serious health conditions. Researchers from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, estimates that alcohol and drug abuse can decrease your lifespan by nearly 10 years. Among the health risks, drug and alcohol abuse can cause high blood pressure, cancer (breast, esophageal, mouth, larynx and pharynx), liver disease, and heart or respiratory failure. The American Cancer Society reports that 2 to 4 percent of all cancers are directly related to alcohol abuse. The mixing of drugs and alcohol can be immediately fatal leading to seizures, coma, heart attack and respiratory failure.
"That kind of behavior can affect your rates catastrophically, " says Ryan Pinney, a high-risk insurance specialist for Roseville, Calif.-based Pinney Insurance Center, Inc. "It's a health hazard and a moral hazard."
In addition to affecting your rates for life insurance, Pinney says, drug and alcohol abuse can also affect your health and auto insurance rates. In some instances, if you have a DUI, you might find your auto insurance policy cancelled altogether.
While drug and alcohol dependency is a fairly common obstacle for those seeking life insurance, Dr. Robert Pokorski, Chief Medical Strategist for The Hartford, says that it's still not impossible to get a life insurance policy at an affordable rate- if you no longer drink.
"The classic case is: you have someone who is getting a little older and realizes they need to take better care of themselves, " Pokorski says. "If they put five years between themselves and those events, they are very insurable and can get standard rates."
Insurers ask prospective policyholders to be forthcoming on medical questionnaires, but if you pass the medical questionnaire you're still not out of the woods yet. Insurance companies also review a prospective customer's medical and driving records along with blood and urine tests.
Pinney says of you have a problem with substance abuse-the best course of action is to talk to an agent about those problems
How do they know?
Insurance companies can access information about a person's health status through the Medical Information Bureau (MIB). The MIB protects insurers, policyholders and applicants against insurance fraud in the life, health, disability, critical illness and long-term care lines of insurance.
If you've been denied life insurance due to a health risk such as substance abuse, a record of the denial is kept in the MIB's database,
"Any insurance company can look up your information in the database, " says Pinney.
For that reason, Pinney says, "The worse thing they can do is blindly apply to several insurance companies for coverage and omit information, especially after a denial."
Although drugs are more difficult to detect and some insurance companies such as The Hartford don't test for drugs, alcohol abuse can be found in several tests used by most insurers to detect problems with liver function. During a paramedical examination, blood samples are subjected to a Carbohydrate Deficient Transferrin (CDT) test to rule out liver disease. Often, when excessive drinking is involved, a person's liver function will be elevated.
"Honestly is definitely the best policy, " Pinney said. "If you don't disclose to an insurance company that you have a problem and they find it in your blood work or they find that you were arrested for driving under the influence last year; they won't be very happy and they won't insure you. In fact, no one will."
Allen Hixon, manager of State Farm's life and health underwriting division, agreed.
If someone is able to hide their problem from an insurance company's review and a policy is issued, Hixon says insurance companies might balk at paying the claim to beneficiaries if it's found out later that they hid information.
"If an insurance company can argue that the policy was entered into fraudulently that could limit what the beneficiary receives, " Hixon said.
Hixon and Pokorski add that unlike hard drugs, insurers view alcohol and marijuana a little differently.
"How someone gets the hard drugs can also make a difference, " Hixon says. "If the abuse comes by someone who has been prescribed chronic pain medication and they can't shake it, it's a little different than someone who is going out to the street corner to buy cocaine or heroin."
For those who have gone through treatment and recovery, insurers recommend waiting at least two years before seeking life insurance.
State Farm generally uses two years of being clean and sober as a benchmark to revisit a policy, but Hixon warns that the rates may still be a little higher.
Pinney says that insurance companies are looking for three things when it comes to underwriting drug and alcohol abuse:
- complete disclosure of problems,
- compliance with their doctor's orders to stop the behavior,
- and what is the ultimate result of that person's efforts to remain clean and sober.

Facts and Myths about alcohol
1.) A person who wants to drink less alcohol should drink white wine.
Fact:
The standard 5-ounce serving of white or red wine, a 12-ounce bottle of beer and a ½-ounce shot of 80 proof distilled spirits contain the same amount of alcohol and register the same on a Breathalyzer test.
2.) Drinking red wine is good for your heart.
Fact:
Red wine can prevent heart disease if it is limited to only one drink a day.
3.) DoesDrinking beer causes a "beer belly"?
Myth:
Eating too much food causes a "beer belly." No beer or other alcohol beverage is necessary is needed to create one.
4.) Drinking will add pounds to your waistline.
Myth:
Drinking alcohol does not cause weight gain. This myth is widely believed because alcohol does have calories. Extensive research has concluded that it does not cause weight gain in men. For women, the research found alcohol frequently causes limited weight loss.
5.) Only college students binge drink.
Myth:
Few college students are binge drinkers. In recent years, the number of students that drink continues to decline including the number of students that drink heavily. Some researchers have defined binge drinking as consuming at least four drinks a day for women and five drinks a day for men. Many college students become branded as binge drinkers because they qualify under that definition. However, by definition binge drinking is an extended period of drunkenness that lasts for several days while the drinker drops out of normal life activities.
6.) Men and women can drink the same amount of alcohol if they are roughly the same height and weight.
Fact:
Men can metabolize alcohol faster because they have more lean muscle than women. Lean muscle helps dilute the affects of alcohol because it increases the percentage of body water. Women typically have a little more fat than lean muscle compared to men. Also, alcohol can affect women more rapidly. Women also have less of the enzyme dehydrogenase, which metabolizes alcohol. And woman's menstrual cycle also affects how alcohol is absorbs and metabolized.
7.) The strictest drinking laws are found in the United States
Fact:
Among Western nations, the United States has the strictest drinking laws for young people. Age 21 is the highest minimum drinking age in the entire world. These tight rules continue by covering adults with zero tolerance rules regarding public intoxication and drinking and driving. 8.) The country with the highest consumption of alcohol in the world per capita is the United States.
Myth
9.) The United States is ranked 32nd with an average consumption rate of 1.74 gallons of pure alcohol per person annually.
Myth:
According to latest estimates, the Top 10 Alcohol Consuming Countries and the average gallons of pure alcohol consumed per person is:
- Portugal 2.98
- Luxembourg 2.95
- France 2.87
- Hungary 2.66
- Spain 2.66
- Czech Republic 2.64
- Denmark 2.61
- Germany 2.50
- Austria 2.50
- Switzerland 2.43
Sources: Alcohol: Problems and Solutions, Hanson, David; Carroll, C.R. Drugs in Modern Society; Cline, C. N. (Ed.) The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) of Life; Wechsler, H., et al., Journal of American College Health, 1998; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; Avis, H. Drugs and Life; Lowenson, J., et al. (Eds.) Substance: A Comprehensive Textbook; Barr, A. Drink: A Social History of America.
This article originally published on www.lifequotes.com.
Life Quotes provides access to comparative quotes for auto, life, health and business insurance quotes so that busy consumers and business owners can save time and money. Life Quotes is dedicated to providing impartial insurance information.
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