A health insurance policy can be a boon in times when you need to pay your hospital bills. Most of your medical treatments would be treated for free and you need to pay absolutely nothing for it. You however need to qualify for the health insurance, before you can start paying your premiums and eventually claim it. Any one in good health would easily qualify for the policy. Especially, if you are young and healthy, you can easily get any of the health insurance policies that are on offer. However, old and unhealthy people find it very hard to convince an insurance company. They find it mighty difficult to grab one such policy.

Younger and healthier people also manage to find low premium policies that cover most of the medical treatments. As against this, the aged and unhealthy people have to pay heavy premiums for their policies. They are also not covered for the pre-existing health problems.

Your occupation also plays an important role in qualifying you for the health insurance. For instance, a school teacher would easily manage to find a policy as compared to a car driver. The reason is that a school teacher is reluctant to live a healthier and safer life as compared to a car driver, who over works at times to earn his living. The insurance companies are after all business organizations looking to make profit. Any applicant who is likely to fall ill will be of a lesser preference to these insurance companies. Also, people who smoke, drink and suffer from certain diseases like AIDS, Cancer, etc will find it nearly impossible to get a policy.

Most insurance companies also consider your living area, before approving you for the insurance policy. In case your living area has too much pollution around, you may be shown a red light. Living in polluted areas can get you ill too soon, leading to the companies pay for the treatment. In other words, if your home has nuclear power plants or any other smoke generating industries around it, you must keep little hopes to get an approval for health insurance.

Age is also considered by the insurance companies, before they approve you of a policy. A young individual is less prone to diseases and treatments as compared to an older guy. At a young age, your premiums will be low and would continue to be so till you grow old. It is therefore wise to apply for a health insurance policy at a very young age.

Some companies also consider the gender while approving the policy. Women are known to live longer than men, and have lesser health problems as compared to men.

Marital status is also taken into account by many companies. Many experts feel that married men live longer than married women. The companies tend to believe such hypothesis and take it into consideration.

All the above points are termed as the risk factors by the insurance companies. If you happen to score high on these points, you are not likely to get an approval. However, if you score low, you will have most companies following you to take their policy.