Life insurance question

[Vaccinebeliever]

About to apply for life insurance and there is a question- “have you used any tobacco products in the last 12 months?”

My husband took a few drags on a cigarette with a friend the other day for the first time in 16 years does he have to declare it? He won’t do it again it made it feel sick but this is worst case scenario insurance and I don’t want it to be invalidated. Should we wait a year to buy? It makes a big difference to the price. I know waiting a year is a risk but we are healthy. I could thump him.

The only way they would know is if he has to do a medical. Think they check for smoking.

But I doubt a couple of drags would show weeks later.

I wouldn't declare it. It sounds like a one off if which case why make things more expensive for yourself

If he says no, the next question is "have you ever used tobacco products?", to which the answer is clearly yes.

It's possible he may be asked to take a nicotine test as part of the medical underwriting. If that showed up positive he'd have a problem. I don't know how sensitive the tests are though as to whether a few drags a few days ago would show up.

Yes he used to be a smoker form age of 16 to about 28 so we know he has to declare that. He hasn’t smoked for so long it’s so annoying. We didn’t take out life insurance when we got mortgage cover (just mortgage cover based on being an ex smoker) but still expensive. We have that and life cover with work but wanted to add critical illness now. We haven’t been able to afford it all these years with childcare etc (we took the risk) but wanted to rectify that now.

I don’t want to invalidate it. Might just wait another year. I might get my cover now and his next year.

What a pain, OP 🤬

We recently (tried) to take out life insurance.

As part of the medical, amongst other things such tape measure and blood pressure machine, we were sent nicotine swabs.

We had to do them on screen in the zoom call.

I don't know how sensitive a few puffs is - Google it?

Or get a home test yourself and see what it comes up with?

Thanks everyone. I think I’ll just do mine a s add him next year. I’m older by one year so maybe it will even out a bit.

Re the “have you ever used tobacco” question when I was a student I sometimes took a puff on a housemates cigarette when I was in uni. Never bought a pack of cigarettes in my life. Never smoked a whole cigarette. That was at least 25 years ago. Do i need to say yes?

Im sure I can get a carbon monoxide test machine in work (work in medical research) so I can check what his result would be? They wouldn’t ask for a snip of his hair like a drug test? Wpuld they?

I would personally go ahead, OP.

A few puffs of a cigarette would be out of your system in days, i would think.

He is a fool though to have tried a fag again after so long - as I'm sure you both know!!! Worth making sure it wasn't a slippery slope.

Thanks all. It was just a stupid one off - after Covid, amazing sunny day, beer garden with friend, children elsewhere. Bliss. I was there. Only started thinking about insurance again in the last few days and i could cry.

@Vaccinebeliever

Thanks all. It was just a stupid one off - after Covid, amazing sunny day, beer garden with friend, children elsewhere. Bliss. I was there. Only started thinking about insurance again in the last few days and i could cry.

@Vaccinebeliever - Honestly, I really think you are overthinking this.

In the nicest possible way - are you a worrier?

A few puffs of cigarette by your DH, and a couple of cigarettes by you during your university days isn't going to count.

You should answer 'yes' if you want to - but If you do, the algorithm will assume you DO regularly smoke tobacco and price accordingly.

Personally, I think your answer, in the circs you describe, is a clear 'no'.

The thing is, Life Insurance only gets more expensive the older you get, so it would probably be better to take it out now. Plus, you don’t know what other medical issues he may encounter in the next 12 months.

Thanks all. I just like to follow the rules 😬

You can apply and say ‘no’.
If he has to test, he has to test and it is likely to confirm the ‘no’ if he hasn’t had any other sneaky puffs..worth just checking. If by some freak it comes up as ‘yes’ he will be offered a higher premium and then you can choose to take the policy or not. This kind of thing will happen all the time, because people do lie. The reason they do checks or sometimes do checks is because they cannot trust what people say. People say they haven’t smoked for 5 years, when they smoked 20 last week but are planning to stop. The tests are not to catch someone who had 3 puffs 5 weeks ago, but those who have been regularly smoking or smoking regularly much more recently.

If you’re worried about being tested and it showing up, how about waiting another 3 months?

I would definitely say no. A few puffs is very unlikely to show up on a test. We have has 3 or 4 different policies over the years and never had to do any tests to prove anything.

The only test is a cotinie testy check for tobacco in saliva which is done at a medical so likely they’d never know if he doesn’t need one, I work in life insurance and wouldn’t declare it. However if they ask please declare historic tobacco use

Thanks all- I don’t want to risk it being invalid. We would always declare historic use. It’s declared on our mortgage cover in any case.

I’m going to take out critical illness for me now and him in 11 months. I won’t lie (and it would be a lie) the question is clear and so is the answer he has used tobacco products in the last 12 months. Its not worth the risk of any claim being invalid but at the same time we have only just started to be able to afford this (I know I know but we have to balance a lot of competing priorities etc) so it puts me in a better position than we are now. We’ll have to continue to take that chance on him. We have good cover with work - death in service and sick pay for up to a year and terminal illness cover.

I just recently took out cover. The only medical test I had to have done was an HiV test. It's just standard here. BUT their algorithms are quite something. They asked me how much alcohol do I drink. I said very little, maybe once or twice a year. So she said so 2 or 3 a year. I say yes. So on my cover now I noticed it says 1 to 14 units a month . I will query this. I suppose they either have that option, ie one a month, or once in 6 months. Because I said 3..... It more than 1 in 6 months. Frustrating really as now I'm higher risk there than I should be.

I would not declare the one puff. And I would also not wait to year to commence cover as each year older you are, the premium increases.