Can I hide my smoking habits from life insurance companies?

Even though lying to your insurance company is completely and utterly unacceptable, there are certain ways of how you can hide your smoking habits without having have to lie. It is obvious that smokers will have to pay much more money for their life insurance policy, so you are probably going to want to hide that habit.

Just because the nicotine level is usually determined in a medical exam, that doesn't mean that you can't be nicotine-free. As a matter of fact, the American Lung Association says that nicotine will disappear from your blood stream and your urine within 72 hours after smoking your last cigarette.

Keeping that in mind, you will be able to avoid admitting the fact that you are a smoker as long as you don't smoke for approximately 4 days.

Even if you are a heavy smoker, you will be able to avoid admitting the fact that you are a smoker if you don't smoke for 72 hours. However, even if you don't get caught in the medical exam, that doesn't mean that, you should lie about your smoking habit on your application.

You see, even if you do get through the medical exam, the application is still ahead. If you do decide to lie on your application and if the insurance company finds out, not only might your application be rejected, but the future insurance companies might reject your applications, too.

Admitting that you are a smoker is the safe option, but that doesn't mean that you can't be one of the smokers that can slide through the underwriting process undetected.

If you deny that you are a smoker and die in the next two years, your policy will go down the drain. You see, most life insurance policies carry a two-year "incontestable clause' that will allow the insurance company to challenge a death claim. If you die during those two years and if the insurance company finds out that you were lying about your smoking habit, they will terminate your policy.

Lying about your smoking does happen once in a while, however, that doesn't mean that you should get too comfortable. There is a high risk that the insurance company might catch your smoking habits. On the contrary, your death benefit will not be jeopardized if you don't inform your life insurer about your smoking. You see, there are two sides to lying to your health insurer about our smoking habits.

You have the complete ability to not smoke for 72 hours and to say that you don't smoke. However, you might be caught lying and if you do die over those 2 years, your policy will remain no more. Keep those factors in mind when deciding to lie about your smoking habits. Denying bad habits such as smoking and alcohol might save you money; but only if you don't get caught.