Blood Pressure & Cholesterol Affects Your Life Insurance Costs

High blood pressure and high cholesterol top the list of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases — such as heart attacks and strokes — that kill an American every 33 seconds on average, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.

It's no wonder your life insurance company will want to know about your cholesterol and blood pressure before offering you a policy, but just because your doctor tells you to eat less salt and saturated fat doesn't mean you'll have to pay higher life insurance premiums.

Life insurers don't just consider your blood pressure or your cholesterol in determining coverage. They also look at your age, weight, whether you smoke, and any other risk factors for heart disease you might have. The more risk factors you have, the greater the chance you'll have to pay higher premiums for life insurance.

"If someone has treated and controlled hypertension, it probably won't affect their life insurance application," says Dr. Alison Moy, medical director for Liberty Life Assurance Company of Boston. "If they're overweight, hypertensive, have high cholesterol, and smoke it will affect them — they will pay higher premiums."

In fact, having only high cholesterol or high blood pressure, without any other red flags for heart disease, might not keep you from getting "preferred" premium rates. When two or more risk factors for heart disease show up on your application, it can get expensive.

If you have high blood pressure but aren't overweight, don't smoke, and have normal cholesterol, you might not get the absolute lowest premiums offered by a life insurer — sometimes called "ultra preferred" or "preferred plus" classes — but you could still qualify for preferred premiums. On the other hand, if you are overweight and have high cholesterol, even if you're a non-smoker with normal blood pressure, you might be offered only "standard" premiums. The more risk factors for heart disease you have, the more you are likely to pay for life insurance.

How high is too high

Doctors generally recommend keeping your total cholesterol below 200, with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol below 100, to stay healthy. If your blood pressure goes above 140 over 90, doctors will have concerns. Even so, life insurers might look at those numbers differently.

"Blood pressure of 140 over 90 is clinically low-level hypertension," says Dr. Jacki Goldstein, vice president and chief medical director for Travelers Life & Annuity. "Life insurers are much more liberal than the clinically accepted definitions."

Acceptable blood pressure and cholesterol levels also depend heavily on your age and gender. Most insurers have developed charts against which they match your age, gender, blood pressure, and cholesterol to determine whether your hypertension or high cholesterol should be a cause for concern.

So how will you know if you're in for problems?

If your physician tells you to start taking medication to get your blood pressure or cholesterol in line, and if you don't follow your doctor's orders, it's a good bet your insurer will charge you higher prices for life insurance. On the other hand, if your doctor doesn't view your blood pressure or cholesterol as serious enough to warrant medication, it probably won't affect your life insurance application either.

It would be very unusual for you to be charged higher premiums for life insurance if your doctor weren't already aware of problematic blood pressure or cholesterol. "It's generally very obvious to a physician that the condition is not under optimal control," says Goldstein.

Don't be afraid to admit to medication

If you are taking medication that has already brought your blood pressure or cholesterol under control, don't worry that it will drive up your life insurance premiums. The medications on the market are very effective at bringing down elevated cholesterol and controlling hypertension, and most insurers care more about your levels when you apply for insurance than how you got them there.

"It all comes down to the levels when you apply for life insurance," says Moy. "If the medications work and you're following your doctor's advice, you can qualify for the best premium classes."

Another point in favor of cholesterol medication and blood pressure-reducing medications is they tend to have very few negative side effects. This makes life insurers happy, because when the side effects of a medication are worse than the symptoms of a disease, they worry about people going off the medication in the future.

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