Summary
An interesting new insurance product has been launched by Animal Friends Insurance. The new insurance plan offers discounted premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a lesser risk than their carnivorous counterparts of developing certain health conditions. It remains to be seen whether other insurance organisations will follow the example set by AFI .

A not-for-profit insurance business has introducd an insurance plan which offers fish-eaters and vegetarians a reduced price life insurance cover.

The deal, considered to be the first of its type, is being brought to the market by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The business is offering vegetarians a 6% discounton life insurance premiums
The organisation said that veggies ought to pay a lesser sum for the product, which pays out if the customer were to die, because they were more unlikely to suffer from a list of critical illnesses, including cancers.

Susan Gaddet, AFI’s managing director, claims that the danger of veggies being diagnosed with certain cancers is lowered by up to forty per cent and the possibility of them suffering from heart disease is lowered by up to thirty two 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 believe that this is unfair and says the insurance companies should acknowledge the fact that being a veggie can make have a significant effect on life expectancy and cut its charges accordingly.

A normal plan is also on the market for meat eaters. Both policies are brought to the market by LV=, which prior, was known as Liverpool Victoria.

In common with normal life policies, a range of factors contribute to the cost of the premium including whether the applicant smokes, their age, sex and weight.

Currently, Animal Friends Insurance is making the six per cent reduction in price itself from the cash it gets from LV=. In the future, however, the firm’s aim was to offer lower premiums on specialist insurance cover. In offering the deal the firm is hoping to sign up enough veggies to make it economically viable for LV= to underwrite another plan that takes the veggie diet into account.

Indeed there are big savings to be made, a 42-year-oldnon-smoker purchasing £300,000 worth of insurance cover might potentially save £393.60 over a twenty five year period.

Where cheap life cover is concerned, AFI thinks that insurance companies should start to treat meat eaters and those that do not eat meat in a way that is similar to the way they view those that smoke and those that don’t. Perhaps other companies in the insurance industry will do the same.

Some managersin the insurance industry are dismissive that there is verifyable proof that veggies live longer, and how any life insuranec company could prove that applicants who had certified that they are vegetarian did not munch on an occasional bacon sandwich.

When it comes to smoking, it’s true that there are your Doctor’s records - if you now don’t smoke it’s certainly likely that your Doctor will be aware. But this won’t apply when it comes to eating meat, an executive from the insurance industry commented.

But many veggetarians say that they are not concerned about people falling off the veggie wagon and suggested that once a vegetarian has become a veggie, they don’t regress to meat-eating, that is unlike smokers who tend to drift out and back again into their old smoking ways.