When applying for life insurance, your weight relative to your height affects your premium. Insurers use height and weight charts, called build charts, to categorize risk. These categories can greatly impact premium costs.
Learn how height and weight affect life insurance coverage and premiums. See how BMI influences underwriting and get tips for better rates.
How Weight Affects Life Insurance Rates
Certain organizations may consider individuals who are overweight as more predisposed to illness especially those that shorten one’s lifespan such as diabetes, heart-related disorders, and certain cancers. This may make them charge you higher rates, particularly if the life insurance medical exam indicates that you have other health conditions.
Insurance providers, whose core function is to protect you against health-related risks, put weight into consideration during underwriting since it is related to the risk of ill health. Broadly speaking the following brackets are taken into account:
- Underweight: BMI < 18.5
- Normal weight: BMI 18.5 – 24.9
- Overweight: BMI 25 – 29.9
- Obese: BMI ≥ 30
A higher BMI often means higher premiums due to the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and shorter life expectancy.
Height and Weight Guidelines
Different insurance providers have different policies when it comes to weight-to-height ratio. The following is a sample life insurance weight chart based on height for some common classifications:
| Height (ft-in) | Preferred Plus (lbs) | Preferred (lbs) | Standard Plus (lbs) | Standard (lbs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5’0 | 95 – 144 | 145 – 154 | 155 – 166 | 167 – 194 |
| 5’5 | 111 – 169 | 170 – 181 | 182 – 194 | 195 – 228 |
| 6’0 | 136 – 207 | 208 – 222 | 223 – 239 | 240 – 279 |
| 6’5 | 156 – 237 | 238 – 254 | 255 – 273 | 274 – 320 |
These figures illustrate the maximum allowable weights for various classifications; exceeding these limits generally results in higher premiums or denial of coverage.
Important Considerations
- Individual differences: Every insurer takes a different approach to underwriting and may rely on different tables. In other words, one insurer may be lenient and allow for a higher weight for a specific height compared to another.
- Health issues: Other than weight factors, insurance companies look at such things as the applicant’s age, sex, medical record, habits including smoking and drinking, as well as the health of the person’s family.
- BMI calculator: Various calculators are available online that will determine your BMI index based on your given height and weight. It is also important to know about the limits of weight restrictions for life insurance policies.
To summarize a very long story, while weight is a big factor in life insurance applications, it’s not the only thing that decides if you’re eligible or how much you’ll pay. Understanding where you fall on the scale can help you figure out the whole life insurance picture.
FAQs
A weight chart for life insurance is a weight and height index that helps insurance companies establish the rates of their policies. It assesses the potential health risks associated with a particular individual, which also affects their insurance premiums.
People who have average weights and those who do not have average weights may have their premiums raised due to the health risks associated with those populations. The more an individual is susceptible to conditions like diabetes or heart disease, the more the insurer charges them.
Life insurance if you are overweight is still possible although the rates might be more expensive, Yes. There are some insurers who provide plans targeted at people with higher BMIs, and prices differ from one company to another.
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