A newly published report suggests that insurers require these consumers to pay more for policies.
A website that provides consumers with life insurance quotes has now released a new report that suggests that people who use marijuana will usually have to pay more for their policies than people who do not.
The report is drawing industry attention from both insurers, agents, and consumers alike.
This recent news was published under the title “Marijuana Users Discriminated Against by Life Insurance Companies.” It was released on the LifeAnt website and explained that insurers usually classify marijuana users as being “smokers”. This means that their rates will often be just as high as those of people who smoke regular tobacco based cigarettes.
This makes life insurance considerably more expensive for marijuana users than for nonsmokers.
A healthy, thirty five year old woman, says the report, who smokes regular cigarettes can expect to pay approximately three and a half times more for her insurance policy that provides $250,000 in coverage, than a woman of the same age but who does not smoke.
Many marijuana users are individuals who are treating medical conditions. This allows insurers to justify an underwriting technique that classifies those consumers in the same category as a person who smokes one or two packs of cigarettes on a daily basis. As a result of this, many of these individuals will forgo purchasing the coverage or they will risk the burden of high premiums that they – or their families – will need to pay.
Smokers of regular cigarettes must pay higher life insurance premiums because the use of traditional products is linked to a broad range of different health problems. That said the National Institutes of health have presented scientific evidence that suggests that states that people who smoke marijuana are not any more likely to die at an early age or to get cancer than a person who doesn’t smoke. Despite this information, insurers still categorize the risks of cancer and death of marijuana users and cigarette smokers as the same.
To rub salt on the wound, while insurers will sometimes provide incentives for policyholders who are careful to take their prescription medications on time and regularly, people who use marijuana for medicinal purposes, such as for the treatment of fibromyalgia, chronic pain, and diabetes, are penalized and are not offered any additional advantages.
