Summary
An interesting new insurance product has been launched by Animal Friends Insurance. The new policy offers discounted premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a lower risk than their meat-eating 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 business has marketed an insurance plan which offers vegetarians and egg eaters a reduced cost life insurance cover.
The deal, considered to be the first of its kind, is being brought to the market by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The firm is offering vegetarians a six per cent price reductionon mortgage cover premiums
The company claimed that vegetarians ought to pay a lesser sum for the insurance, which pays out if the policyholder were to die, because they were more unlikely to suffer from a selection of serious conditions, including cancers.
Amanda Jude, the managing director of AFI, said that the risk of vegetarians being diagnosed with certain cancers is shrunk by up to 40% and the possibility of them suffering from heart disease is reduced by up to 32 per cent, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay identical insurance premiums as people who eat meat.
She says that AFI believe that this is patently unfair and says the life industry should acknowledge the fact that being a veggie can make a positive impact on life expectancy and reduce its monthly charges accordingly.
A standard price arrangement is also on the market for meat eaters. Both plans are underwritten by LV=, which was previously known as Liverpool Victoria.
In common with standard life policies, a range of things contribute to the cost of the premium including whether the applicant smokes, their age, weight and sex.
Currently at the moment, Animal Friends Insurance is making the 7% lower price itself from the money it receives from LV=. In the future, however, the firm’s aim was to offer lower costs on specialist cover. In the organisation is hoping to sign up enough veggies to make it economically viable for LV= to underwrite another insurance plan that takes the vegetarian’s diet into account.
Indeed there are significant savings to be had, a 42-year-oldnon-smoker buying £300,000 worth of life insurance cover might potentially save £393.60 over a 20-year term.
Where critical illness is concerned, AFI thinks that life insurers should try to treat meat eaters and people that don’t eat meat in ways that are similar to the way they approach smokers and non-smokers. Perhaps others in the insurance industry will do something similar.
It is thought that some senior managersin the insurance industry do not believe there is proof that vegetarians live longer, and how any insurance company could prove that those who had applied stating that they were vegetarian did not sometimes enjoy the odd lamb chop.
It’s true that when it comes to smoking there are GP records - if you now don’t smoke it’s certainly likely that your GP will know about it. But this isn’t the case 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 vegetarian, they do not go back to meat-eating, that’s unlike applicants who smoke who tend to drift out and back again into their old smoking ways.
