Veggies Take Life Insurance carrot
Summary
An innovative new insurance plan has been launched by Animal Friends Insurance. The new insurance plan offers cheaper premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a lower risk than their carnivore counterparts of developing certain medical conditions. It remains to be seen whether other insurers will follow the new policy marketed by Animal Friends Insurance .
A not for profit insurance firm has marketed an insurance plan which offers fish-eaters and vegetarians a reduced cost critical illness .
The offer, believed to be the 1st of its kind, is being pioneered by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The organisation is offering vegetarians a six per cent price reductionon life assurance premiums
The company claimed that vegetarians ought to pay a lesser cost for the insurance, which pays out if the policyholder dies, because they were less likely to suffer from a range of very serious illnesses, including cancers.
Rebecca Puttey, A senior director at Animal Friends Insurance, claims that the risk of veggies being diagnosed with certain cancers is lowered by up to forty per cent and the risk of them suffering from heart disease is lowered by up to 30%, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay identical premiums as policyholders who eat meat.
She says that AFI think that this is not fair and says the insurance companies should acknowledge the fact that being a veggie can make a positive impact on life expectancy and reduce its monthly charges accordingly.
A full-price policy is also on the market for non-vegetarians. Both policies are sold by LV=, which was known as Liverpool Victoria.
In common with standard life plans, a range of factors 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 seven per cent reduction in price itself from the payment it receives from LV=. In the future, however, the business’s objective was to offer lower costs on specialist insurance cover. In ,offering the discount the firm is hoping to sign up enough vegetarians to make it cost effective for LV= to underwrite another policy that takes the veggie diet into account.
Indeed there are huge savings to be made, a forty two year oldnon-smoker purchasing £300,000 worth of insurance cover might potentially save £393.60 over a twenty year period.
Where cheap life insurance is concerned, AFI considers that insurers should try to treat those that like meat and people that don’t eat meat in approaches matching the way they view smokers and non-smokers. It is to be hoped that other companies in the insurance industry will follow the initiative.
It is thought that some executivesin the insurance industry doubt whether there is proof that vegetarians live longer, and how any life insuranec company could prove that people who had certified that they were vegetarian did not eat the odd spare rib.
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 won’t apply when it comes to eating meat, an insurance executive observed.
But many veggies argue that they are not worried about people falling off the veggie way of eating and suggested that once a veggie has become a vegetarian, they do not go back to meat-eating, unlike people who smoke who tend to drift out and back again into their habit.