What are Life Insurance rates based on?

Life insurance premiums are as individual as your fingerprint. They’re based on your “risk profile” which is measured for the most part by your:

· Age. The younger you are, usually the lower your price.
· Tobacco Use — cigarettes or other nicotine products past or present.
· Health status. Height, weight. Have serious health issues?
· Gender. Women generally get lower rates than men of the same age because statistically, women live longer.
· Family medical history of parents and siblings.
· Lifestyle. Are you a pilot? Sky or scuba dive?

The other important thing you need to know is that each of the 1,000-plus companies that offer Life Insurance sets its own price for each “risk profile”. They have 15 or more categories of risk and different rates for each one. So the trick is finding the company that offers the best price for your “risk profile.”

Unless you’re willing to spend days talking to agent after agent the simplest thing to do is have an independent company shop for you. The oldest and largest company of this kind is SelectQuote.com. Their agents are all licensed and have tremendous expertise. they will ask several questions to determine which risk category you are likely to fall into and then shop the diverse and highly rated companies they represent for your best rates. No salesperson comes to your door.

SelectQuote has exclusive videos of Suze Orman offering impartial advice on buying Life Insurance.