The advertised rates for term life insurance almost always provide the caveat that low rates do not apply to tobacco users. If you're a smoker, chances are that you will almost always pay more than nonsmokers for life insurance. You can still obtain life insurance albeit at a higher cost. smoker's term life insurance is term life insurance especially designed for smokers.

Like any term life insurance, smoker's term life insurance provides a cost-effective way to get maximum insurance protection for a set period of time at a fixed cost. It pays a death benefit and builds no cash values. However, life insurance rates for smokers vary widely and can be affected if you are considered a high-risk candidate due to tobacco habits.

Smoker's life insurance premiums are often from two to three times higher than non-smoker premiums; this is because 87% of lung cancer afflictions are due to smoking. Lung cancer kills more people than breast, prostate, and colon cancer combined.

As such, in order to underwrite such a policy where the probability of claim is high, most insurance companies charge a premium and require extensive medical check ups prior to underwriting the policy.

Not all life insurance companies use the same underwriting criteria to determine whether or not you would fall into one of their smoker classifications.

Some companies consider any tobacco usage in the past year, at all, to be criteria for smoker classification. Some are stricter, by considering any usage in the past two, three, five, or even ten years to be grounds for classifying a policy-holder a smoker.