How much smoking does it take to be considered a "smoker," and what if you fudged your answer about smoking on your life insurance application?

Life insurance companies want an accurate picture of activities that could affect your longevity. Asking whether you've smoked in the past few years goes along with asking whether you pilot a private plane or plan to travel to undeveloped countries.

Life insurance companies generally use three broad rate classifications for pricing policies: standard, preferred or preferred plus. Then there are the rates for smokers, who pay significantly higher premiums within their classes.

Who is considered a smoker?

To an underwriter, you're a smoker if you answer "yes" to the smoking question on a life insurance application. That will encompass cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco used within a specific number of years (which can vary by insurer).

Many life insurers will allow the "celebratory" or "occasional" cigar smoker to still qualify for non-smoking rates. Insurers generally define "occasional" as smoking 12 cigars or less per year. Of course, the urine sample you provide for your life insurance exam must be nicotine-free, too.

If you're a regular smoker, it's not a good idea to try to lie on your application to try to escape detection in order to get a lower rate.

If you've lied on your application about smoking and nicotine turns up in your medical exam tests, you'll be issued your policy at the smoking rate.

The worst case scenario? Say you die of a heart attack and it comes to light that you've been a smoker all your life. The insurance company could justifiably deny the claim. That's not a position in which you want to put your beneficiaries. It's better to pay the extra premium and know your beneficiaries will eventually collect the benefit.

Perhaps you've made an application and don't like the smoking rate you've been given. Don't try to apply with a different company and lie to get nonsmoker rates; your previous medical exam results will sit in a database operated by MIB Group for seven years. When the insurer checks your new application against the MIB database, which is used to detect fraud, your history will be revealed.