Life Insurance For Vegetarians
Summary
An innovative new insurance policy has been introduced by Animal Friends Insurance. The life insurance 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 insurance firms will follow the lead set by Animal Friends Insurance .
A none profit insurance firm has marketed an insurance scheme which offers egg eaters and vegetarians a reduced premium critical illness .
The offer, thought to be the 1st of its type, is being marketed by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The company is offering vegetarians a seven per cent reduction in priceon mortgage protection premiums
The firm claimed that vegetarians ought to pay less for the product, which pays out if the plan holder were to die, because they were more unlikely to suffer from a selection of serious conditions, including cancers.
Sheils Hatline, AFI’s managing director, said that the danger of veggies being diagnosed with certain cancers is reduced by up to 40% and the possibility of them suffering from heart disease is cut by up to 32 per cent, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay the same insurance costs as clients who eat meat.
She says that Animal Friends Insurance think that this is not fair and says the life insurance industry should acknowledge the concept that being a vegetarian can make a very positive impact on life expectancy and cut its monthly premiums accordingly.
A standard priced plan is also on the market for meat eaters. Both policies are sold by LV=, which prior, was known as Liverpool Victoria.
In common with standard life cover, a range of aspect contribute to the cost of the premium including whether the applicant smokes, their weight, age and sex.
Just at the moment, Animal Friends Insurance is making the 6 per cent lower price itself from the money it earns from from LV=. In the future, however, the firm’s aim was to offer lower premiums on specialist cover. In offering the price reduction the firm is hoping to sign up enough veggies to make it economically worthwhile for LV= to underwrite yet another insurance policy that takes the veggie diet into account.
Indeed there are significant savings to be made, a 42-year-oldnon-smoker buying £300,000 worth of insurance cover might potentially save £393.60 over a twenty five year period.
Where life insurance quotes is concerned, AFI believes that insurance companies should begin to treat those that like meat and non-meat eaters in approaches matching the way they assess smokers and non-smokers. It is to be hoped that other companies in the insurance industry will follow the initiative.
Some senior executivesin the insurance industry doubt whether there is robust proof that vegetarians live longer, and how any insurer could prove that applicants who had stated that they were vegetarian did not munch on an occasional bacon sandwich.
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. However, this is unlikely to apply when it comes to eating meat, an insurance executive said.
But many veggies argue that they are not concerned about people falling off the vegetarian way of eating and suggested that once a veggie has become a vegetarian, they do not return to meat-eating, that’s unlike applicants who smoke who tend to drift out and back again into their habit.
