As the economy toughens, the cost of living goes up. This simple, yet totally disheartening formula has caused many South Africans to look for ways to restructure their monthly budgets and cut-down on costs. Being a grudge purchase, insurance is often one of the first things to get crossed off the list.
However, even though life insurance is intangible, it is an absolute necessity and the good news is that there is a way in which you can reduce your life insurance premium.
"If you are taking out life insurance for the first time or increasing the amount of life cover you already have, and want to ensure cost-effective life insurance premiums, the old adage, ‘an apple a day, keeps the doctor away' should be considered," says Lenerd Louw, CEO of 1Lifedirect, South Africa's first fully direct life insurance provider.
Ultimately, getting into shape and leading a healthy lifestyle makes sense and cents. Quitting smoking, eating low-fat foods and exercising regularly, can lower your risk of heart disease, high cholesterol and high blood pressure which ultimately, directly affects the cost of your monthly life insurance premium.
Louw explains: "A life insurance premium is determined by risk or how healthy you are. Traditional insurers assess a client's risk by sending him/her for numerous and intrusive medical examinations however, 1Lifedirect assesses a client's risk over the phone, within 20 minutes and no medical examination is needed. It pays to live a healthy lifestyle, because these medical tests or underwriting questions directly affect how much your monthly premiums will be."
If this isn't enough to make you want to swap that chocolate bar for a carob coated rice cake then the premium savings should speak for themselves.
With 1Lifedirect, a 30 year-old non-smoking, healthy female will pay a premium of around R125* per month for R1 million life cover whereas a 30 year old female who smokes, will have to cough up about R195* per month for the same amount of cover.
Carob coated rice cakes anyone?