Vegetarians Given Life Insurance Incentive
Summary
An innovative new insurance product has been introduced by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The insurance plan offers cheaper premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a lesser risk than their carnivore counterparts of developing certain illnesses. It remains to be seen whether other insurers will follow the policy introduced by AFI .
A none profit insurance firm has launched an insurance plan which offers vegetarians and egg eaters a reduced premium cheap critical illness insurance .
The deal, considered to be the 1st of its type, is being introduced by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The business is offering veggies a 7% reduction in priceon life assurance premiums
The company claimed that vegetarians ought to pay a lower amount for the product, which pays out if the plan holder were to die, because they were less likely to suffer from a list of chronic illnesses, including cancers.
Rebecca Puttey, A senior director at Animal Friends Insurance, claims that the danger of vegetarians being diagnosed with certain cancers is reduced by up to forty per cent and the possibility of them suffering from heart disease is reduced by up to 30 per cent, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay the same insurance premiums as policyholders who eat meat.
She says that Animal Friends Insurance believe that this is unfair and says the insurers should recognise the idea that being a veggie can impose a positive impact on life expectancy and reduce its charges accordingly.
A full-price plan is also on the market for non-vegetarians. Both plans are underwritten by LV=, which used to be known as Liverpool Victoria.
In common with normal life policies, a range of aspect contribute to the cost of the plans including whether the applicant smokes, their age, sex and weight.
Currently, Animal Friends Insurance is making the six per cent cheaper premium itself from the money it gets from LV=. In the future, however, the company’s aim was to offer lower costs on specialist cover. In offering the deal the organisation is hoping to sign up enough vegetarians to make it economically worthwhile for LV= to underwrite another insurance plan that takes the veggie diet into account.
Indeed there are worthwhile savings to be had, a 38 year oldnon-smoker purchasing £300,000 worth of cover might potentially save £393.60 over a 25-year period.
Where life insurance deals is concerned, AFI believes that life insurers should start to treat people that eat meat and non-meat eaters in ways that are similar to the way they approach those that don’t smoke and those that do. It is to be hoped that other companies in the insurance industry will do the same.
Some peoplein the insurance industry are dismissive that there is verifyable proof that vegetarians live longer, and how any life insurer could prove that those who had stated that they were vegetarian did not sometimes enjoy the odd lamb chop.
It’s true that when it comes to smoking there are GP records – if you do smoke it’s likely that your Doctor would know about it. However, this is not the case when it comes to eating meat, an executive from the insurance industry commented.
But many veggetarians say that they are not concerned about people falling off the vegetarian wagon and suggested that once a veggie has become a veggie, they don’t regress to meat-eating, unlike people who smoke who tend to drift out and back again into their habit.