Vegetarians Given Life Insurance Incentive

Summary
An interesting new insurance plan has been introduced by Animal Friends Insurance. The insurance plan offers discounted premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a lower risk than their carnivore counterparts of developing certain diseases. It remains to be seen whether other insurers will follow the policy introduced by AFI .

A not-for-profit insurance business has introducd an insurance scheme which offers egg eaters and vegetarians a reduced cost cheap life cover .

The offer, thought to be the 1st of its kind, is being pioneered by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The company is offering non-meat eaters a 7% cheaper premiumon cheap life cover premiums
The business said that vegetarians ought to pay less for the cover, which pays out if the client were to die, because they were more unlikely to suffer from a list of chronic illnesses, including cancers.

Rebecca Puttey, a director at AFI, said that the risk of veggies being diagnosed with certain cancers is shrunk by up to forty two per cent and the risk of them suffering from heart disease is lowered by up to 32 per cent, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay broadly identical premiums as people who eat meat.
She says that Animal Friends Insurance believe that this is not fair and says the insurers should recognise the idea that being a veggie can create have a positive influence on life expectancy and lower its premiums accordingly.

A standard policy is also on the market for non-vegetarians. Both policies are brought to the market by LV=, which prior, was known as Liverpool Victoria.

In common with standard life policies, a range of things 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 discount itself from the money it gets from LV=. In the future, however, the company’s objective was to offer lower premiums on specialist insurance plans. In the firm is hoping to sign up enough vegetarians to make it economically worthwhile for LV= to underwrite yet another policy that takes the vegetarian’s diet into account.

Indeed there are significant savings to be made, a forty-year-oldnon-smoker purchasing £300,000 worth of insurance cover might potentially save £393.60 over a 25-year term.

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 approaches matching the way they assess those that don’t smoke and those that do. Hopefully others in the insurance industry will take the same initiative.

It is thought that some senior managersin the insurance industry are doubtful whether there is verifyable proof that veggies live longer, and how any life insuranec company would know that applicants who had applied stating that they are vegetarian did not sometimes enjoy the odd lamb chop.

It’s true that when it comes to smoking there are GP records – if you do smoke it’s possible that your Doctor would know about it. But this does not apply when it comes to eating meat, an said a spokesperson from the insurance industry.

But many veggies argue that they are not worried about people falling off the vegetarian wagon 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 in and out of their habit.