Life Insurance For Vegetarians
Summary
An innovative new insurance policy has been developed by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The new policy offers lower premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a lower risk than their carnivore counterparts of developing certain diseases. It remains to be seen whether other insurers will follow the example set by AFI .
A not for profit insurance firm has marketed a scheme which offers fish-eaters and vegetarians a reduced price mortgage insurance .
The deal, thought to be the 1st of its kind, is being marketed by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The firm is offering non-meat eaters a six per cent reduction in priceon mortgage life insurance premiums
The organisation claimed that vegetarians ought to pay a lesser sum for the product, which pays out if the policyholder were to die, because they were less likely to suffer from a list of chronic illnesses, including cancers.
Rebecca Puttey, AFI’s senior director, claims that the risk of veggies being diagnosed with certain cancers is reduced by up to 42% 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 broadly the same life insurance premiums as people who eat meat.
She says that Animal Friends Insurance believe that this is not fair and says the life industry should recognise the idea that being a veggie can make have a positive influence on life expectancy and cut its charges accordingly.
A standard price plan is also on the market for meat eaters. Both insurance policies are sold by LV=, which was previously known as Liverpool Victoria.
In common with standard life cover, a range of things contribute to the cost of the plans including whether the applicant smokes, their age, weight and sex.
Currently, AFI is carrying the 6% cheaper premium itself from the commission it gets from LV=. In the future, however, the business’s objective was to offer lower costs on specialist cover. In making the offer the company is hoping to sign up enough veggies to make it worthwhile for LV= to underwrite yet another plan that takes the vegetarian’s diet into account.
Indeed there are huge savings to be had, a thirty eight year oldnon-smoker buying £300,000 worth of insurance cover might potentially save £393.60 over a twenty year term.
Where serious illness insurance is concerned, AFI thinks that insurance companies should try to treat meat eaters and people that don’t eat meat 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 take the same initiative.
It is thought that some senior managersin the insurance industry doubt whether there is verifyable proof that vegetarians live longer, and how any insurer could prove that people who had applied stating that they were vegetarian did not enjoy the occasional Big Mac.
When it comes to smoking, the insurance company can refer to your Doctor’s records – if you now don’t smoke it’s certainly likely that your Doctor will know about it. However, this is not the case when it comes to eating meat, an said a spokesperson from the insurance industry.
But many veggetarians say that they are not concerned about people falling off the veggie way of eating and suggested that once a vegetarian has become a veggie, they do not return to meat-eating, unlike applicants who smoke who tend to drift out and back again into their old smoking ways.
