Cheaper insurance policies tempting smokers to quit?

Coming up to a year since the introduction of the smoking ban across England and Wales, it has become clear that the government's strong-arm approach has proved successful in getting people to give up on their habits.

According to recent research from Brendan Healthcare, since July some 1.64 million people have stubbed out their final cigarette, equivalent to around 14 per cent of the country's entire smoking population, with Londoners and those living in the south-east of England having been particularly good.

However, while the health benefits of stopping smoking have been widely acknowledged for many years now, the financial cost of the habit has been relatively overlooked, especially when it comes to the implications the habit has on a person's insurance policy.

Indeed, not only will those 1.64 million Brits be better able to exercise, they will also be saving themselves a tidy sum each month, as Norwich Union recently illustrated.

In an effort to boost the nation's health – and undoubtedly its own customer numbers too – the insurer reported that the cost of its monthly life insurance premiums are effectively cut in half when someone stops smoking.

This would mean that the average adult in good shape would be able to cover themselves against any unfortunate medical circumstances for less than a packet of 20 cigarettes a month.

With statistics like these, it is likely that the number of people taking out non-smokers health insurance policies over the coming months is likely to soar.

Given this, insurers have stepped-up their vetting processes in anticipation of receiving applications from people falsely claiming to have given up smoking in order to save a few pounds.

Amanda Sandford, research manager for Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) has warned that it may not be as easy as it may seem for smokers to blag themselves a cheaper policy.

"If, for instance, someone has to have a medical to get their insurance, then a test to see whether you're smoking or not could be incorporated into that medical. There are two main means of doing that," she explained.

"One is to use a carbon monoxide monitor, which monitors the carbon monoxide in your body. You blow into a machine and smokers will have much higher readings than a non-smoker, so that's a fairly standard way of measuring it.

"The other way is to take a saliva sample and test that for the nicotine that's in your bloodstream. So there are easy ways of testing whether people really are smokers or ex-smokers."