Is It Too Late to Stop Smoking?
Smoking is one of the leading causes of health problems today. As it is become so socially acceptable, everyone seems to be smoking without that much concern for the health effects it has. But do not be under any illusions, smoking is extremely bad for you and it is never too late to quit the habit. Although it may be difficult to quit smoking you will certainly not regret it after your lungs have started to get cleaner and notice the health improvements. At first you will get the withdrawal symptoms and your body will be urging you to have another cigarette, but after a while these urges should slowly subside and if you have stopped smoking for a long time it will get to a point where you are so use to not smoking, the thought of smoking may be unpleasant to you.
Practical Benefits of Quitting
Not only is smoking going to decrease the chances of getting serious health conditions like cancer, but it also has its practical benefits too with regard to your health insurance policy. As smoking is so bad for you, all health insurance providers are going to assess smokers a bit more harsher than non-smokers when they are setting out the details of a customer's policy. Heavy smokers may get smoking related conditions and diseases on the exclusions list of their health policy or get higher monthly premiums. Non-smokers on the other hand will not suffer these disadvantages on their health policy.
If you are a smoker and you finally decide to quit, your health insurance provider should recognise it and lower your monthly premium or change the details of your policy. This will dependent on a couple of things however. Firstly how long had you smoked before hand, if you have been a long term smoker, perhaps since you were at the legal age to smoke and have only just stopped, it is likely that quite a bit of damage has been done to you already.
Although quitting is of course a positive sign for your insurer, as you have been smoking for so long already the benefits that may be reflected in your health policy as a result of you quitting may be a lot weaker than you envisioned. If, on the other hand, you have smoked for a year or so and then have decided to quit, the damages that have been done to your body are going to a lot less severe than they would be to a long term smoker. As a result the changes to your health policy are going to be a lot more substantial and are likely to begin with immediate effect.
Improvements to Health Policy
Another thing that health insurance providers are going to take into account is the amount that you smoke a day as well as the length of time that you have smoked. If you are a light or social smoker, who only has around 5 cigarettes a week, the damage is obviously going to be less than that of a heavy smoker who smokes a pack a day for example. A health insurance provider is probably going to have a threshold in terms of the length of time you have smoked and the amount you have smoked and if you pass that threshold your policy details are likely to change for the worse. If you quit smoking however they should also have a system in place which will gradually lower your monthly premium and make the details of your health policy a lot more desirable for you.