Higher Premiums for Smokers

• Drivers who have had a lot of accidents pay more for auto insurance, and houses with outdated electrical systems yield higher premiums for homeowners insurance. Insurers measure risks when they determine premiums, and since smokers are risky patients, their premiums are higher than those of nonsmokers. Health plans are legally permitted to look at smoking history and to charge smokers more. Most people have their health insurance through their employers or their spouses' employers, and in turn the employers may require smokers to pay more toward their employee insurance contribution. This applies to both private and public employers.
  
  

Encouraging Healthy Living

• Some employers grant financial incentives for healthy lifestyles, such as fitness club membership discounts or subsidies to attend weight-loss programs. Using a similar philosophy they hope that charging more for health insurance will encourage employees to stop smoking. Employers sometimes reduce insurance premiums for employees who complete wellness programs, including smoking cessation programs.
  
  

Workplace Bans

• Many employers ban smoking at work, including outdoor spaces on the business premises. Some employers even refuse to hire smokers and require new hires to take smoking tests, similar to drug tests. Though some people may view workplace bans as an attempt to intrude upon the private lives of employees, they are largely an economic effort to reign in spiraling health care costs and insurance premiums.
  
  

An Ironic Twist

• Smokers have high health care costs during their lifetimes and die younger. The irony is that overall, smokers may actually save society money. In part that is because they collect fewer retirement benefits, such as pensions and Social Security, because they do not collect them as long. A Dutch study published in 2008 in the journal "Public Library of Science Medicine," and other similar studies, have shown that smokers even save on health care costs. The Dutch researchers concluded that healthy people incur about $417,000 in health care costs while smokers only cost $326,000 simply because they die sooner. These facts, however, do not impact health insurance rate since health insurance companies care about what their living clients cost them.