You can still get life insurance even if you smoke a pipe, and you may be able to qualify for great non-smoker rates. Pipe smoking is different than smoking a cigarette and the life insurance industry takes this into consideration. Many people smoke a pipe as a leisure activity and oftentimes do not inhale, which makes it “safer” than cigarette smoking and some insurance companies rate accordingly.
When you apply for life insurance, you will want to be completely honest about any tobacco use whether you are an everyday cigarette smoker or just smoke a pipe for 30 minutes at the end of a work week. If it turns out that you lied about tobacco use on an application, the life insurance company can penalize you by reducing your death benefit to what your premiums would be paying for on a smoker-rated policy.
You lied on your application saying you never used any tobacco product and were offered a 20-year $1,000,000 term policy for $53 a month. During the two-year contestability period, the insurance company discovered you actually are a daily pipe cigar smoker. Your policy suddenly drops down to a $175,000 death benefit instead of $1,000,000 because that’s what the $53/month smoker-rate would cover.
If it is discovered after you die that you misrepresented yourself, the carrier can dispute part or all of the benefit your beneficiaries were to receive upon your death. It does not pay to try and fool the insurance company.
Some life insurance companies recognize that smoking a pipe does not carry the same health risks as other tobacco use and will rate applicants as non-smokers no matter how often you smoke a pipe.
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Some life insurance companies recognize that smoking a pipe does not carry the same health risks as other tobacco use and will rate applicants as non-smokers no matter how often you smoke a pipe. Other life insurance companies will give you non-smoker rates if you pipe smoke only as long as no nicotine is detected in your urine test, which means you aren’t a daily smoker since cotinine usually takes 1-3 days to leave your system. And then there are the life insurance companies that will automatically give you smoker rates if you smoke a pipe.
Quotacy works with many insurance companies and we will shop your case at those carriers whom are more lenient with pipe smokers. No matter what tobacco product you use, plan ahead for your loved ones. No one ever anticipates needing to use life insurance, but the unexpected happens. Be prepared and get a free and anonymous term life insurance quote today.
Photo credit to: Joe Haupt
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About the writer
Natasha Cornelius
Marketing Content Manager and Editor
Natasha is the marketing content manager and editor for Quotacy. She has worked in the life insurance industry since 2010, and making life insurance easier to understand with her writing since 2014. When not at work, she's probably studying and working toward her Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) designation while throwing a tennis ball for her pitbull mix, Emmett, or curled up on her couch watching Netflix. If it’s football season, the Packers game will be on. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
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Hi, Do you have access or links to the research that Prudential and Lincoln Financial used to decide to classify pipe smokers as non-smokers? I would love a copy of that to read because my doctor told me that my occasional pipe smoking was lowering my stress levels and thereby improving my health.
Thank you!
Hi Jeremy,
Smoking rates are quite high compared with non-smoker rates for life insurance. There are a few insurance companies, Prudential and Lincoln Financial included, that are willing to consider pipe smoking, cigar smoking or nicotine gum or tobacco chewing individuals as non-smokers. I haven’t seen anything that describes the reasoning behind this and there are actuaries at many other insurance companies that disagree with this assessment wholeheartedly.
I am happy that your doctor believes the pipe is lowering your stress levels and improving your health. I am sure there are other doctors who will disagree with your doc. Ultimately it is our own decision how we live our lives and there is a difference between quality and quantity. There are some carriers that consider marijuana users as smokers and some who consider them non-smokers as well. Life insurance is not priced the same by the insurance companies. Make sure when you buy it to work with a broker who represents multiple carriers.
Looking for 100,000 policy
Hi Richard,
I assume you are a pipe smoker since you commented here?
If so, the go-to carriers for a $100K life insurance policy for a pipe smoker are going to be Prudential and Lincoln Financial. They both currently consider pipe smokers to be “non-smokers”. For pricing, please go run a quote and be sure to say you are a pipe smoker under the “Tobacco Usage” section. The quoting tool will then factor that into your pricing estimates. Some carriers will give you a smoker rate, though the carriers I mentioned prior will not and will have much better rates than any other carrier in the market.
Feel free to contact us if you have any more questions.