Excerpt: As anyone who's ever applied for life insurance knows, you need a health examination before the insurance company can determine your monthly premiums. We were pretty confident going into the exam (my wife's a marathoner, I'm fairly active) that we'd secure at least 'preferred health' rates. We got 'preferred' all right -- I got 'preferred tobacco,' and we were hit with $120 more in monthly premiums than we'd expected.  MORE >>