No Smoking Day is upon us, and with that we receive a timely reminder of how much money can be saved through stubbing out the habit for good. Life insurer Aviva has released statistics showing that if smokers quit, they will pay significantly less on their life insurance premiums.

Women who hit 35 on their next birthdays, can save up to £40.56 if they’ve quite smoking and are on a 15 year level term assurance (without critical illness cover) and with a sum assured of £75,000. Men who are 25 on their next birthdays can, with 30 year level term (with reviewable critical illness cover) with a sum assured of £125,000, can net a saving of £151.56 annually.

Astonishingly, a smoke-free 45 year old male will make a maximum saving of £276.60 annually for his 10 year level term policy (no critical illness cover), with a sum assured of £50,000.

Aviva revealed that 15% of their customers are still smoking, and, according to the Office of National Statistics, two thirds of British smokers do want to quit. The habit comes at both a financial and physical cost, with information about quitting available at smokefree.nhs.uk. This site will provide you will details about how smoking affects your health, and also allows you to operate a smoking cost calculator. If your pack of 20 cigarettes costs £5, and you smoke 20 a day, it is costing you £1825 annually; the equivalent of 30 Premier League tickets, or 6 weekends in Paris.

If you combine that figure with the potential difference in your life insurance premium, then you could be saving £2,000, maybe even more! More importantly, you will massively decrease your own risk of heart disease and lung cancer.

Aviva policyholders must be smoke-free for 12 months in order to be classed as a non-smoker. No Smoking Day is Wednesday 10th March.

Image from NoSmokingDay

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 10:53 am and is filed under Life Insurance, Money Saving Tips, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.