I fully believe they should pay higher premiums. If you know you are participating in risky behavior that may result in future health problems, then you should pay extra for that decision.

The question seems simple really.

I’m against it, for the reasons highlighted by rambleon.

A better, fairer, less bureaucratic and more humane solution is to simply tax cigarettes higher, and then feed that money into the healthcare system.

Well I’m in favour of a publicly funded health care that is basically equal for everyone and of such high quality that having a private insurance on the side should not really be needed (but if people who are well off still want to get a private insurance to get some better comfort in the event of falling ill – so be it).

Anyway, if you do have a premium system and make a smoker pay a higher premium, how much higher should it be? Obviously the bigger the smoker you are, the higher the risk of running into smoke related health problems. So should the premium be increasingly higher the more you smoke? 10% higher if you smoke 10 cigs a day, 30% if you smoke 20 etc? How is this going to be checked / controlled? Or will the insurance company take my word for it when I say I only smoke 5 a day? (I actually don’t smoke at all, for the record). Isn’t it just much more straightforward to let smokers pay per cig already when buying them?

Well, as you know..they advertise that it is easy to get insurance now by clicking a button or making the call yourself….this is usually okay for basic coverage (the one that is required by law) if you are driving a car that you do not own out right (you are still making payments on) your coverage will need to be a little different to satisfy your contract with the lien holder. You can still have do-it-yourself insurance without an agent but what the agent is good for (and having a good relationship with one is good for) is if you need multiple things insured (cars, house, life, business) then they can handle all of this for you….when you need to use your insurance….trust me, it’s almost never a good time….it’s wonderful to be able to make one phone call and tell the agent…this happened…and let them handle all the details. Our agent works with multiple companies to find the cheapest coverage….also, smoking was mentioned earlier….it was great to have such a relationship with a agent, who knows us by name…and when we were looking for life insurance, my husband felt comfortable enough to go in and say "Hey Larry "I smoke weed" and the wife wants life insurance, how do we do that.
Perhaps you can save a little money by not having an agent but the headache of trying to dig through paper work in the event you need your insurance, trying to remember what type of coverage you have, who covered you etc….. You can also change your oil for real cheap all by yourself……without using anyone else but somethings are worth paying for….