The personal information usually required for life insurance cover is not sucked out of an actuary's thumb to make the process of taking out an insurance policy look important. Your personal details are the factors that influence your life assurance premiums. 

In order to assess your risk to the company, an insurer needs to know about you, your lifestyle and your physical health; but it's not a judgment on you or your lifestyle. These factors, your personal details, include:

• Contact details (do you live life precariously under a bridge or in a secure townhouse complex?),

• Date of birth (how old are you and what, statistically, is your life expectancy?),

• Gender (gender, like age, affects your life expectancy),

• Smoker status (smokers generally succumb terminally earlier in life to lung disease but require more medical treatment while they're still alive),

• Highest education (education plays a role in the way you conduct your lifestyle and understand the effects of what you do, e.g., smoking),

• Medical history (some medical conditions are hereditary),

• Current medical status (e.g., whether you are diabetic or HIV positive, and whether you are on chronic medication),

• Monthly income (are you able to afford the premiums for this policy and are you part of the social strata that is neither desperate nor extravagant in its lifestyle? Also see ‘highest education' above), and

• Occupation (are you a secretary or an Outback Steve living on the edge?).

Insurance application forms and policies vary among insurers. For instance, online life insurance quotes (eQuotes) are designed to be quick and easy to fill in and are not generally complete; they'll give you a ballpark figure for life cover. This is why it is so important for you to compare insurance quotes and inspect the fine print.

Some life insurance companies  may require an HIV test; others don't. Whether an insurer requires one or not is built into the average costs clients in the company's database ultimately have to pay.

If any of your personal details are potentially factors that may influence the risk the insurer is taking by insuring you, even if you are not explicitly asked about these factors, you should disclose them to your insurer or at least mention them to your broker who will be able to advise you.

Most of the above factors are pretty self-explanatory, but let's look at just one that only appears to be and shows how important it is to make smart life insurance choices.

People often think the occupation factor is obvious, e.g., a fireman by definition has a higher risk occupation than a school teacher. But I have a friend who was a computer programmer. Sitting in front of a terminal all day, he suffered a little repetitive strain injury but as time went by his role became more managerial and his duties less demanding. He spent a lot of time advising his cute blonde secretary how best to format his correspondence in Microsoft Word. Another promotion came up and this time he was dispatched to the Philippines to oversee the installation of a new computer system. The food was great, the people friendly and the women agreeable dolls. But the Philippines is a long flight from South Africa. Within two years my friend was barely able to walk; serious circulation problems triggered by long periods sitting on planes and exacerbated by a sedentary lifestyle took their toll. He had to retire early. He cashed in his life insurance and opened a restaurant. Another year on his feet and he was in a wheelchair; a canny buyer bought the restaurant for a song and my friend ended up having to downgrade his lifestyle to survive.

The lesson here is to insure smart. Life insurance is not scanning the prices of the different brands of tuna in the supermarket and tossing the cheapest into the trolley. Research your insurer and the cover you need as you would an elixir for life; you never know when you'll need one.