Height, weight and life insurance

How insurers actually use it

Every application collects height and weight, and at a paramedical both are measured rather than taken on trust.

Insurers work from build tables: a grid of heights against weight ranges, with each range corresponding to a rating level. It is not a single threshold you pass or fail. It is a series of bands, and moving up a band moves the price.

Body mass index is the shorthand people know, and insurers generally use their own tables rather than the standard BMI categories. The practical effect is similar.

Above the top of the table, coverage may not be available from that insurer, and the point at which that happens differs between companies.

The variation between insurers is unusually large

This is the most useful thing on the page.

Build tables are proprietary, and they differ enough that the same person can be standard at one insurer and rated at another, or rated at two different levels at two companies. The gaps are wider here than for most factors.

Some insurers also adjust their tables by age, on the basis that the significance of a given build differs across the lifespan. Others do not.

For someone near a threshold, this means a single application tells you very little about what the market would do. It is a straightforward case for applying through someone who can approach several insurers.

What else is on the file matters more than the number

An underwriter is not really assessing weight. They are assessing what weight tends to bring with it.

Build above guidelines with normal blood pressure, normal glucose, a good lipid profile and no other findings is assessed relatively gently. There is a number outside the table and nothing else supporting it.

The same build alongside raised blood pressure, raised glucose and an unfavourable lipid profile is a different file entirely. Underwriters read that combination as a cluster, and the assessment reflects the whole pattern rather than the weight alone. The related pages are high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol.

Two conditions commonly associated with higher body weight are assessed separately and can compound the picture: sleep apnea, and joint disease affecting mobility.

The practical consequence: if everything else on your file is clean, that is worth far more than a few pounds either way.

Weight change

Underwriters look at direction as well as position, and this works in both directions.

Gradual, sustained loss documented over a period is generally read favourably, particularly where the associated measurements have improved alongside it.

Rapid recent loss with no explanation attracts questions rather than credit. Unexplained weight loss can indicate an undiagnosed problem, and underwriters would rather understand it than assume the best.

Repeated cycles of loss and regain are noticed, and insurers usually assess on the current measurement rather than the best point in the cycle.

If you have lost weight deliberately and it is documented in your medical record, that record is more useful than describing it on the application.

What happens above the tables

Where a build sits beyond what an insurer will consider, several things remain possible.

A different insurer, whose table extends further, may make an offer.

Simplified issue products ask a short set of questions and some include a height and weight limit of their own, so this depends on the specific product.

Guaranteed issue asks nothing about health, though products still have their own eligibility boundaries.

A smaller coverage amount does not usually change a build assessment, since the rating is proportional, but it does change what the premium comes to.

Reconsideration

Build ratings are among those insurers will most readily revisit.

Where weight has changed and the change is documented and sustained, a request for reconsideration is a normal process. Insurers generally want to see the new position held for a period rather than measured once, for the obvious reason.

Ask at the point of issue whether the insurer will reconsider, and after how long. See ratings and substandard offers.

Applying

Give accurate figures. They will be measured anyway, and a discrepancy between the application and the paramedical measurement is an unnecessary complication.

If your build sits near a threshold, that is a specific reason to have the application looked at across several insurers rather than sent to one.

The boundary

This page describes how insurers read a measurement. It is not advice about weight, diet or health, and nothing here is a target or a recommendation. Anything you want to do about your own weight is a conversation with your doctor, and it matters for reasons entirely unrelated to an insurance application.