It probably comes as no surprise that good health is a good thing when it comes to life insurance premiums. Obviously, you can’t do much about your medical history, but there are some factors that impact your premiums that you can control.

1. Your personal risks. This risk is determined by assessing everything from your occupation and how dangerous it is to your health and lifestyle and even your hobbies. If you’re an adrenaline junking or have a high BMI you may have what’s called a ‘premium loading’ added to your cover. This means you pay a higher premium than someone who doesn’t have those risk factors.
   If your health improves or your lifestyle has changed recently, get in touch with your adviser to review your policy and determine if these loadings can be removed to help lower your life insurance premiums.
2. The more protection you have, the higher the cost of your cover. The cost of your cover will be affected by the number and type of benefits that are payable on your policy such as trauma, disability, and death. The finer details of those benefits including the sums insured, the length of the benefit period and the waiting period will also have an impact on your policy cost.
3. Your premium structure. For most policies, there are two main premium structures offered, stepped and level life insurance premiums.

A stepped premium is recalculated each year based on your age at each policy anniversary. Generally, this means your premium will increase each year as you get older.

A level premium is calculated based on your age when any cover started and averaged out over a number of years. This means your cover, compared to ‘stepped premiums’, is more expensive at the beginning of your policy, but generally gets cheaper as your policy continues.

There are also a number of other factors that may influence your premium, so it’s important to talk to a professional before making any changes to your cover. If you’d like to review your cover for life insurance premiums reach out to your Elston adviser, they’re always happy to help.

If you would like more information please call 1300 ELSTON or contact us.