No, I don’t think insurance companies are trying to control anything other than their bottom line. People have a choice, they can smoke all they want but there are consequences in that there will be a higher payments.
I agree that the outrageous taxes put on cigarettes is a method to control smoking. I think that is totally wrong.
Actually my husband tried to tell me the same thing about parachuting. That was a hobby of his before we had a child. If he listed it as a hobby, his Life insurance payments would have tripled. He tried to tell me that insurance companies just hated parachuters. I didn’t buy it :-) I think insurance companies have spreadsheets, and they know what costs them money and what doesn’t. There’s no emotion in it, it is all very calculated (pun intended). They weren’t trying to stop him from parachuting, but they knew it was a dangerous hobby and they had a higher possibility of having to pay out to the claim.
“No, I don’t think insurance companies are trying to control anything other than their bottom line. People have a choice, they can smoke all they want but there are consequences in that there will be a higher payments.”
You are right....they are only after the bottom line. It’s ever so convenient though that they are able to ride the tide of demonizing, stigmatizing, ostracising and political grandstanding against smoking and smokers.
I won’t argue that the routine inhaling of smoke can’t be problematic. However, a very relatively low percentage of smokers actually develop lung cancer or COPD. The question then arises as to whether these unfortunates wouldn’t have developed these maladies had they never smoked. (There is a sizable cohort of never smokers who develop lung cancer and/or COPD). Like every other controversial issue one needs to educate oneself whilst being acutely aware of the political/social agendas at play.