The Healthiest And Least Healthy States, According To Life Insurance Companies
When you apply for life insurance, you generally have to answer some questions about your health or submit to a medical exam. This is annoying — especially if your test results jack up your premiums — but it gives life insurance companies a trove of interesting data about their users' health. PolicyGenius, an online insurance platform, analyzed two years worth of data from life insurance applicants around the country and found some surprising results.
As you can see, the healthiest and least healthy states are right next to each other. Congratulations to Montana and Wyoming, where only 5.7% of life insurance applicants have a health problem. Better luck next time to North Dakota, where 12.4% of life insurance applicants have a health condition. North Dakotan life insurance applicants were more much likely to smoke, be depressed or have diabetes than the national average — almost 35% of life insurance applicants from the state smoke, compared to 20.5% nationwide.
However, PolicyGenius found that overall, life insurance applicants are healthier than the average American.
One might expect unhealthy people to apply for life insurance more than healthy people, since they're at higher risk of no longer being there to support their families. Counterintuitively, the opposite is true: People applying for life insurance pursue healthier lifestyles than average…
Life insurance applicants, on average, have lower rates of high cholesterol (25% less than national average), tobacco use (22%), high blood pressure (14.4%), diabetes (7.1%), sleep apnea (4.2%), asthma (3.6%) and depression (0.7%).
PolicyGenius doesn't speculate about why this is. Maybe people who are responsible about their health habits are more likely to be responsible about their finances, too. Or maybe people who can afford to pay life insurance premiums are also the kind of people who can afford gym memberships, healthy foods and relatively low-stress lifestyles.
You can find more stats and analysis, including lists of where all 50 states rank on blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea and other conditions, over at PolicyGenius.
[Via Priceonomics]
