If you are to be , do not smoke cigars for at least four days prior to the test so that there is no remnant of cotinine (a nicotine metabolite) in your body. Cotinine is used as a marker of tobacco smoke inhalation. Cotinine has a half-life of just under one day. Past the first 20 hours, cotinine levels in your body will sink to half, after the next twenty hours to quarter, etc. For these reasons, it is safe to count on any amount of cotinine to be metabolized down within four days.
Premiums for cigar smokers vary greatly between companies. The difference can sometimes be over $40,000 for the term of the policy.
As with any other insurance application, it is necessary to be truthful when applying for coverage. Until a plan has been in effect for twenty-four months, the insurer has the right to contest it for omission or misinterpretation of an important detail. The ‘incontestability period’ varies depending on the life insurance company.
Smokers in general are best served by a competent independent insurance broker who understands and keeps up-to-date on the underwriting guidelines of a range of life insurers. The same holds true for everybody seeking for insurance with pre-existing medical conditions.
Written by Lorne Marr, Toronto insurance broker and expert in no-medical life insurance. Lorne has been working in life insurance in Canada for well over a decade.