Putting on the pounds will pile on the premiums when you apply for critical illness and life insurance. New clients are finding the notch on their belt that was acceptable three or four years ago now rates them as obese - and with a premium loaded by 50 per cent or more as insurance companies attempt to catch up with the UK's explosion in obesity.



But even if you succeed in shedding weight later on, your insurance company may not slim down your monthly payments in line. Rates of obesity have risen by around 300 per cent in the UK over the past generation and, on present estimates, it seem obesity will pose a bigger and bigger problem over the next 25 years. It is a proven fact that overweight people are more likely to suffer from heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes, chronic depression and other life threatening conditions.

The key measure of obesity is the Body Mass Index (BMI). This relates weight to height, irrespective of gender. You can calculate it by dividing your weight in kilos by your height in metres and square the result.

If your BMI is less than 19, you are probably over thin and probably unhealthy. At a BMI of between 19 and 25 your weight is normal; from 26 to 30 you are classified as overweight but not too much, from 30 to 40 you are obese and anything greater is extreme obese.

To perhaps save you from doing the sums, if you are 5ft 2 and weigh up to 9st 5lb you are "normal"; and up to 11st 4lb is overweight. Anything over that and you are obese. At 5ft 6in you can weigh up to 10st 8lb normally; and up to 12st 11lb you are overweight. At 6ft you are normal if you weigh up to 12st 9lb and overweight up to 15st 3lb. heavier than these figures and obesity begins. A 5ft 9in person would be extremely obesity from 19st 3lb onwards.

But now insurers are tightening up. They are increasingly considering those within the overweight limits as being obese. Those who criticise the BMI method of assessing weight claim it does not reflect different body frame sizes. Many athletes, especially rugby players and rowers, - would have high BMIs and be treated as unhealthy. Some claim that waist size is a better indicator. But, for the time being, these arguments are academic.

Another of the problems is that insurers are continually moving down the dividing line between normal and obese. This means the insurers will charge more for people who would previously have been insured at normal rates for life or critical illness insurance.

It is true that premiums quoted for life and critical illness policies have fallen dramatically over the past 20 years - that is since the Aids/HIV panic forced rates up. And they are continuing to fall even further. But low quoted prices mask a situation where life insurance underwriters are being far more careful. Far fewer applicants are being accepted at the price they were initially quoted. Application forms are asking more more searching questions, and insurers are charging extra for those who are not completely fit. They are cherry-picking the fittest people on their standard quoted rates but hiking premiums for those who tip the scales too far.

Another factor is that the prevoius loading for obesity caused premiums to jump by 20 percent - but now we're talking 50 per cent or more. And while some insurance companies will reduce the loading for some medical conditions if the policholder appears to be in complete remission or cured, removal of loading for obesity is highly unlikely.