You'll pay more or less depending on your habits, your health and age. Habits like smoking, hobbies or sports like skydiving and health conditions will make it impossible for you to have cheap life insurance. But whether you have poor habits or are involved in life-threatening activities or not you can still save in life insurance if you know a few things.

1. There was this man who only smoked a cigar once a year to mark special occasions and he went ahead and told his medical examiner just that. He assumed that his insurer would understand that cigars were just to make special events.

He was wrong as the insurance company he chose ended up giving him the exact same rates as if he was a two pack a day man. They gave him a rate that was so high it was exactly twice as high as non-smokers rates.

Ordinarily one would have expected him to take it as final as it came from a highly rated insurance company. He would not accept that on his part because he reasoned that smoking just once a year did not put him in the same position as a two-pack-a-day man.

He wrote explaining to the insurance company that he only smoked just once a year and therefore demanded that the give him a non-smoker's rate.

To cut a long story short, he eventually had his rates reduced by up to 50% after weeks of negotiating. There are many life insurance carriers out there and they are all competing for your business. For those who have a reasonable case, use this to your advantage.

Insurers are only interested in ensuring that your premiums reflect your risk to them. So if you have a good reason to ask for lower rates, ask the worst that would happen is that they won't give you any discount.

This does not suggest in any way that you should give false details in other to negotiate a better deal. Doing so can compromise your life insurance policy as your insurer could simply opt to pay your beneficiaries the total of total premiums you've paid so far plus accrued interests only.