When a person applies for life insurance, the relationship between his or her height and weight is taken into account.
According to Edward E. Graves, author of McGill’s Life Insurance, it is also one of the basic determinants of mortality risk.
The first studies on the relationship between build and mortality were published in 1913, and the findings served as the foundation for build height and weight tables, which have been used by insurance companies to determine a person’s risk for the last decade. Height and weight tables from a 1979 Build Study were adopted in 1980, raising the acceptable weight ranges for shorter men and women and illustrating various weight and height combinations.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield website has examples of similar insurance tables for both men and women.
When men and women apply for life insurance, their body types are determined using height and weight charts. Debits and credits, which are positive or negative ratings assigned by insurers as a means of scoring applicants and classifying them, may be assigned to each individual based on their build. Debits are unfavorable because they can raise insurance rates; credits, on the other hand, can help lower rates and are appealing to applicants.
A woman standing 5′ 5″ and weighing 166 pounds would be eligible for the preferred plus category. According to a leading life insurance company, a man standing 5′ 5″ and weighing 171 pounds would also fall into the preferred plus category. This is the ideal weight for a policyholder, and they would pay significantly less for a life insurance policy if they had it.
A man or woman who stands 5′ 5″ and weighs 230 pounds (the maximum allowable weight allowed by the insurer) falls into the standard category. Anything over 230 pounds earns them a Table-B or Table-C rating, which means they’ll have to pay more in insurance premiums.
Overweight men are subjected to additional measurements based on the distribution of their extra weight. The chest measurement usually exceeds the abdominal girth by two inches in well-built men, but this can be reversed in overweight men.