Veggies Given Life Insurance Leg Up
Summary
An innovative new product has been launched by Animal Friends Insurance. The new policy offers cheap 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 insurers will follow the lead set by Animal Friends Insurance .
A not-for-profit insurance business has introducd an insurance scheme which offers egg eaters and vegetarians a reduced premium cheap critical illness insurance .
The deal, thought to be the first of its type, is being marketed by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The firm is offering non-meat eaters a six per cent reduction in priceon life assurance premiums
The company said that veggies ought to pay a lesser sum for the insurance, which pays out if the client dies, because they were less likely to suffer from a selection of serious conditions, including cancers.
Amanda Jude, A senior director at Animal Friends Insurance, said that the danger of veggies being diagnosed with certain cancers is lowered by up to 42% and the risk of them suffering from heart disease is reduced by up to thirty two per cent, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay the same insurance costs as plan holders who eat meat.
She says that AFI believe that this is not fair and says the insurers should recognise the idea that being a veggie can make have a positive influence on life expectancy and cut its charges accordingly.
A full-price policy is also on the market for meat eaters. Both insurance policies are underwritten by LV=, which was known as Liverpool Victoria.
In common with standard life cover, a range of aspect contribute to the cost of the plans including whether the applicant smokes, their age, sex and weight.
Currently at the moment, AFI is funding the six per cent cheaper premium itself from the money it gets from LV=. In the future, however, the company’s objective was to offer lower costs on specialist insurance plans. In offering the price reduction the company is hoping to sign up enough veggies to make it economically worthwhile for LV= to underwrite yet another policy that takes the vegetarian’s diet into account.
Indeed there are welcome savings to be had, a forty-year-oldnon-smoker wanting £300,000 worth of life insurance cover might potentially save £393.60 over a twenty five year period.
Where critical illness is concerned, AFI believes that life insurance companies should start to treat people that eat meat and those that do not eat meat in a way that is similar to the way they approach those that smoke and those that don’t. Perhaps other companies in the insurance industry will follow the initiative.
It is thought that some senior managersin the insurance industry are dismissive that there is proof that veggies live longer, and how any insurer could prove that people who had certified that they were vegetarian did not enjoy the occasional Big Mac.
It’s true that when it comes to smoking there are GP records - if you now don’t smoke it’s possible that your GP is likely to 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 way of eating and suggested that once a veggie has become a veggie, they do not go back to meat-eating, unlike people who smoke who tend to drift out and back again into their habit.
