Veggies Given Life Insurance Leg Up
Summary
An interesting new insurance policy has been marketed by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The new insurance plan offers lower premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a lower risk than their meat-eating counterparts of developing certain illnesses. It remains to be seen whether other insurance organisations will follow AFI’s lead .
A not-for-profit insurance business has marketed an insurance plan which offers egg eaters and vegetarians a reduced cost cheap critical illness insurance .
The offer, believed to be the first of its kind, is being pioneered by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The organisation is offering vegetarians a 7% price reductionon cheap life cover premiums
The organisation claimed that veggies ought to pay a lower amount for the cover, which pays out if the plan holder dies, because they were more unlikely to suffer from a range of very serious illnesses, including some cancers.
Amanda Jude, AFI’s senior director, said that the risk of vegetarians being diagnosed with certain cancers is shrunk by up to forty two per cent and the risk of them suffering from heart disease is reduced by up to 32 per cent, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay the same life premiums as clients who eat meat.
She says that AFI believe that this is not fair and says the life insurance industry should acknowledge the fact that being a veggie can make have a significant effect on life expectancy and cut its monthly premiums accordingly.
A standard plan is also on the market for non-vegetarians. Both insurance policies are sold by LV=, which prior, was known as Liverpool Victoria.
In common with standard life insurance policies, a range of aspect contribute to the cost of the policies including whether the applicant smokes, their age, sex and weight.
Currently, AFI is making the 6 per cent discount itself from the commission it earns from from LV=. In the future, however, the business’s aim was to offer lower costs on specialist insurance cover. In the organisation is hoping to sign up enough vegetarians to make it viable for LV= to underwrite another plan that takes the vegetarian’s diet into account.
Indeed there are huge savings to be made, a thirty eight year oldnon-smoker wanting £300,000 worth of life insurance might potentially save £393.60 over a twenty year term.
Where online life insurance is concerned, AFI thinks that life insurance companies should begin to treat those that like meat and non-meat eaters in ways that are similar to the way they assess non-smokers and smokers. We hope that that other companies in the insurance industry will follow the initiative.
It is thought that some senior managersin the insurance industry are doubtful whether there is proof that veggies live longer, and how any insurer would know that applicants who had certified that they were veggies did not sometimes enjoy the odd lamb chop.
When it comes to smoking, the insurance company can refer to your GP’s patient records – if you do smoke it’s certainly likely that your GP would know. But this does not apply when it comes to eating meat, an insurance executive said.
But some veggies contend that they are not worried about people falling off the vegetarian ways and suggested that once a veggie has become a vegetarian, they do not regress to meat-eating, unlike smokers who tend to drift in and out of their habit.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 4:47 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.