Up to 28 percent more
Insurers ask smokers to pay
April 10, 2026 – 1:04 p.mReading time: 3 minutes
The occasional cigarette can make insurance coverage noticeably more expensive. What smokers need to consider and why dizziness is risky.
Smoking is an expensive vice. Anyone who smokes an average of 20 cigarettes a day wastes around 3,000 euros a year at a pack price of 8.40 euros. Smokers also pay higher prices when it comes to insurance coverage.
Smokers pay an average of 12.4 percent more for occupational disability insurance than non-smokers. This was the result of a survey by the money guide “Finanztip” among a total of 27 insurers. The price surcharges differ from insurer to insurer. At the peak, smokers pay up to 28 percent more. This can be several hundred euros per year. But that is still comparatively moderate: smokers often pay double or even triple the amount for term life insurance.
For a long time, BU insurers did not differentiate between smokers and non-smokers. In recent years, however, more and more providers have introduced non-smoking tariffs with cheaper premiums. The reason is obvious: smokers are more likely to develop serious illnesses. According to the German Cancer Research Center, smokers have more than twice the risk of cardiovascular disease and twice the risk of stroke. As a result, the risk increases for insurers, which they can pay for through higher premiums. However, smoking is not an exclusion criterion, unlike particularly risky hobbies or certain previous illnesses.
Even occasional smokers have to dig deeper into their pockets. When applying, insurers usually ask whether the insured person has actively consumed nicotine in the past twelve months. Even if you only smoked one cigarette during this period, insurers classify you as a smoker. The method of nicotine consumption, whether via cigarettes, cigars, pipes or shisha, does not matter. Insurers also consider anyone who uses e-cigarettes to be smokers.
However, if you only start smoking after taking out BU insurance, you usually don’t have to report it later. This is where BU insurance differs from term life insurance, where a change in non-smoking status must be reported to the insurer immediately. However, you have to be careful: Individual providers require additional registration if insured people start smoking. It is therefore always advisable to take a look at the small print of the contract. In return, it is generally not possible for smokers to subsequently switch to the non-smoking tariff.
Anyone who provides false information about their smoking status in their insurance application risks losing their insurance coverage. If the insurer has doubts about the information provided by its customer, it can request medical tests. The breakdown products of nicotine, primarily cotinine, can be identified. The most common examination methods are:
