"Committing to making a positive change to your health can also lead to a positive change to your wallet – and realising that may help people stick to their decisions. More importantly, stopping smoking can greatly reduce the likelihood of getting more serious illnesses."
When it comes to the cost of premiums, smokers usually pay around twice as much as their non-smoking counterparts, rising to nearly three times as much for older smokers.
But while there is huge potential for savings on premiums - not to mention the money saved from not buying cigarettes - there are still potential risks for those who have trace nicotine in their system.
As Pruggmayer said, there ought to be more education around the effect that quitting aids such as nicotine gum could have on a person's medical records for insurance purposes.
Paterson added: "The simple fact is that the effects of smoking may never leave the body and can always have some form of impact on health irrespective of when the smoker gave up.
"Don’t get me wrong the smoker will have a significantly better outcome if they stop smoking but it doesn’t automatically make them a standard risk that should be priced the same as everyone else.”
A spokesperson for Vitality said they would consider anyone who had not used nicotine products in the past year as a non-smoker: “When applying for life insurance, we ask people to declare their smoking status which includes the use of cigarette and nicotine replacement products.
"We do not currently differentiate between the use of any nicotine product.
“We do however, consider anyone who has not used any form of nicotine product within the past 12 months as a non-smoker, and will offer non-smoker rates as a result.”
LV told FTAdviser: "At application stage, smoker rates would apply to anyone who declares they’ve smoked, vaped, used e-cigarettes or other nicotine replacement products in the last year.
"For existing customers, if they stop smoking or using the nicotine replacement products for a period of 12 months, they can apply for non-smoker rates."
Similarly, a spokesperson for Royal London said the insurer had a 12-month period in which quitters using nicotine replacement products would still be priced as if they were still smoking.
The spokesperson said: "Any customer that uses a nicotine replacement product in the last 12 months will currently be given smoking rates.
