Research: Claims statistics show true life expectancy figures for smokers
Insurers' claims statistics have helped reveal the true life expectancy for smokers and non-smokers, according to the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI).
Following a study into the death rate experience by lives insured by the major life offices, the CMI found that the difference in mortality between smokers and non-smokers is greater than the gap between men and women at almost every age.
Previously, figures used from the Office of National Statistics only supplied mortality information based on death certificates, which do not record smoking habits.
The CMI believes the latest result, which showed that smoking plays a bigger role than gender when it comes to life expectancy, was only made possible thanks to the fact that insurers force policyholders to indicate whether or not they smoke on an application form before taking out an insurance policy.
That said, CMI chairman, Brian Ridsdale, pointed out that the findings still somewhat underestimate the impact smoking has on mortality rates. "This is because life offices' proposal forms record only whether people smoked when they bought their policies. The CMI's data of non-smokers therefore includes both people who did smoke in the past but gave up some time before they bought their policy - and those who started smoking after purchasing life assurance,' Ridsdale said.
The CMI figures showed that male smokers aged 60 are estimated to have a 106 in 10,000 chance of dying at that age compared with non-smoking men of the same age, whose risk of dying at that age is 48 in 10,000. It also revealed that a 60-year old female smoker has an estimated 85 in 10,000 chance of dying, compared with 35 in 10,000 chance for a non-smoking female.
