Life Insurance and Weight Loss

Given that I have a young son, a wife, and a daughter on the way, I've been looking at upping the amount of life insurance I'm currently carrying. One of the interesting things I've found at this point is how insurance companies look at weight loss and how it impacts coverage.

Many people tend to yo-yo on weight loss. They'll lose a lot and then gain back half of it or more in a short period. I've done this before as have many other people. This time around, it's been a slow and steady decline for me and the weight is staying off. Regardless, until you've gone a year with the weight off, most insurance companies will only credit you with half the weight you've lose when looking at their coverage charts. For instance, at this point, I've lost 67 pounds. I am only credited, however, with 33.5 of that, so I'm actually shown for life insurance purposes at 366.5 rather than the 333 the scale shows.

I just talked to the agent at Select Quote, and it looks like all we have to do is wait until my one year anniversary of starting Weight Watchers (this would be the first week in July) and they'll be able to credit me with the whole amount and move forward.

While it's a little annoying not to be able to get the coverage now (since what I get through work is minimal at best)--especially after the car accident on GA400 last week, I find the whole process amusing. Of course, the Insurance business is all about providing coverage while minimizing losses. They're a business and out to make money, which they can't do if they give policies to obese people who then keel over from a heart attack two years later.

Regardless, the agent is on the ball, has a plan, and we can keep rewriting my policy as I keep losing weight until I get to a steady "good" weight, at which point we can lock in a rate for 10-15 years. It's kind of amusing at times to watch how other things shift up and down as you drop weight, even when they're not something that's directly related (like my need yet again for more pants is a directly related thing).