Summary
An innovative new insurance product has been launched by Animal Friends Insurance. The insurance plan offers cheap premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a lesser risk than their carnivore counterparts of developing certain health conditions. It remains to be seen whether other insurance firms will follow AFI’s lead .
A none profit insurance firm has launched an insurance plan which offers vegetarians and fish-eaters a reduced price life insurance.
The deal, considered to be the 1st of its type, is being introduced by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The organisation is offering non-meat eaters a 7% reduction in priceon life cover premiums
The business said that vegetarians ought to pay less for the cover, which pays out if the plan holder were to die, because they were more unlikely to suffer from a list of chronic 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 42% and the danger of them suffering from heart disease is cut by up to thirty two per cent, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay the same premiums as clients who eat meat.
She says that Animal Friends Insurance think that this is not fair and says the life insurance industry should recognise the concept that being a veggie can create have a significant effect on life expectancy and lower its charges accordingly.
A full-price arrangement is also on the market for meat eaters. Both plans are sold by LV=, which prior, was known as Liverpool Victoria.
In common with normal life insurance policies, a range of things contribute to the cost of the premiums including whether the applicant smokes, their weight, age and sex.
Currently at the moment, Animal Friends Insurance is making the 6% reduction in price itself from the fee it gets from LV=. In the future, however, the business’s aim was to offer lower costs on specialist plans. In making the offer the organisation is hoping to sign up enough vegetarians to make it cost effective for LV= to underwrite yet 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 life insurance might potentially save £393.60 over a 20-year term.
Where cheap life insurance is concerned, AFI thinks that life insurers should try to treat meat eaters and non-meat eaters in approaches matching the way they approach smokers and non-smokers. Perhaps other companies in the insurance industry will do the same.
It is thought that some executivesin the insurance industry doubt whether there is robust proof that veggies live longer, and how any insurer could prove that people who had certified that they are veggies did not savour the occasional rump steak.
When it comes to smoking, the insurance company can refer to your GP’s patient records – if you do smoke it’s likely that your GP will know. However, this is not the case when it comes to eating meat, an an insurance industry spokesperson observed.
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 don’t return to meat-eating, that is unlike those that smoke who tend to drift out and back again into their old smoking ways.
