Vegetarians Given Life Insurance Incentive
Summary
An interesting new insurance plan has been developed by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The new insurance plan offers discounted premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a reduced risk than their meat-eating counterparts of developing certain medical conditions. It remains to be seen whether other insurance organisations will follow the lead set by Animal Friends Insurance .
A no-profit insurance business has launched an insurance policy which offers vegetarians and fish-eaters a reduced cost life insurance premium .
The deal, considered to be the first of its type, is being introduced by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The firm is offering vegetarians a seven per cent lower priceon life assurance premiums
The firm claimed that vegetarians ought to pay less for the cover, which pays out if the plan holder dies, because they were less likely to suffer from a range of chronic diseases, including some cancers.
Elaine Fair, a director at AFI, claims that the danger of veggies being diagnosed with certain cancers is reduced by up to 42 per cent and the risk of them suffering from heart disease is cut by up to 30 per cent, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay broadly identical insurance premiums as clients who eat meat.
She says that Animal Friends Insurance believe this is unfair and says the life insurance industry should acknowledge the fact that being a veggie can make a very positive impact on life expectancy and cut its premiums accordingly.
A standard price policy is also on the market for non-vegetarians. Both policies are brought to the market by LV=, which was previously known as Liverpool Victoria.
In common with standard life policies, a range of aspect contribute to the cost of the monthly premium including whether the applicant smokes, their age, sex and weight.
Just at the moment, Animal Friends Insurance is funding the 6 per cent reduction in price itself from the payment it receives from LV=. In the future, however, the company’s objective was to offer lower costs on specialist cover. In offering the price reduction the firm is hoping to sign up enough vegetarians to make it economically worthwhile for LV= to underwrite yet another insurance policy that takes the vegetarian’s diet into account.
Indeed there are welcome savings to be had, a 42-year-oldnon-smoker buying £300,000 worth of life cover might potentially save £393.60 over a twenty five year term.
Where critical illness is concerned, AFI believes that insurers should start to treat those that like meat and those that do not eat meat in approaches matching the way they view those that don’t smoke and those that do. Perhaps other companies in the insurance industry will do something similar.
Some senior executivesin the insurance industry doubt whether there is verifyable proof that vegetarians live longer, and how any life insuranec company would know that applicants who had certified that they are vegetarian did not eat the odd spare rib.
When it comes to smoking, it’s true that there are your Doctor’s records – if you now don’t smoke it’s possible that your Doctor is likely to know about it. However, this is not the case when it comes to eating meat, an insurance executive said.
But many veggies argue that they are not worried about people falling off the veggie way of eating and suggested that once a vegetarian has become a veggie, they don’t return to meat-eating, that is unlike those that smoke who tend to drift in and out of their habit.
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