I doubt that any of us like paying life insurance premiums.

Partly, I suspect, because it confronts us with our own mortality.

But if you have a family to provide for, or you have significant debts like a mortgage, life insurance is a must.

Many Australians hold some life insurance through their super, though the level of cover may be inadequate for your needs.

You can also buy life insurance outside of your super fund, but it's likely to be more expensive.

That said, there are some ways to trim your premiums (the cost of the insurance).

It won't surprise many to learn that smoking is one of the biggest factors likely to push up your life insurance premiums.

On average, smokers can expect to fork out around 40% more for life insurance than non-smokers.

For a 30-year old smoker, that could mean paying an extra $950 in annual premiums.

On the plus side, if you quit smoking for more than 12 months, you're generally entitled to a non-smoker's discount.

Another key factor shaping premiums is your job.

Some occupations are riskier than others, thereby attracting higher premiums.

Research group Cannex recently reviewed a broad range of life insurance policies across a range of different occupation categories and found that for 'professional', 'blue collar' and 'white collar' jobs, ING Life offered the best deal.

For 'light manual' occupations, Macquarie Life was found to give the best value.

One aspect of insurance we often overlook is that increasing your cover doesn't have to mean a massive rise in premiums.

In fact, it is possible to boost your overall level of life insurance and actually save money on the premium.

It works like this.

In determining your annual premiums, life insurance companies generally charge a base premium for each $1000 of cover provided.

After this, personal factors like your age and sex are taken into account to arrive at a final premium.

However at some levels of cover, typically $250,000 and $1 million, special discounts often kick in.

These discounts, when applied to the premium, can make it cheaper to take out a higher level of cover.

For example, Cannex found that a 30 year old non-smoker buying cover worth $249,999 could expect to pay an average premium of about $245.18.

By boosting the level of cover to $265,000, additional discounts were taken into account, bringing the average premium down to $245.07.

That's an extra $15,000 worth of life cover for 11 cents less.

These sorts of benefits reinforce the importance of shopping around for life insurance to compare premiums and discounts as well as the terms and conditions of any policy.

Worth checking out is Cannex's life insurance report, which you can access at www.cannex.com.au.

The website also features an online calculator to help you determine how much cover you're likely to need.