Save on Life Insurance Premiums: Go Vegetarian

Vegetarians are rare, vegetarians  have fewer options in food, vegetarians are healthy, vegetarians get cheaper  insurance. You heard that right. Insurance companies are now coming to terms  with the fact that vegetarians have more life expectancy and are less prone to  chronic diseases, heart problems and are also more resistant to cancer.

Life insurance premiums are  calculated based on several factors. Basically, they use mortality tables to  deduce the premium as well as tax free death benefit. The factors are mainly  your family medical history and some lifestyle habits. Most companies consider  your driving records, addiction levels to smoking and alcohol, the place of  living, etc. Even the traffic levels and crime rate of the place you live and  work are considered sometimes. But it is quite recently that eating habits are  added to the long list and rightly so. Overeating and obesity shows in your  medical records, but the fact that you could be a vegetarian doesn’t.

You might be wondering, what’s  the big deal about being a vegetarian anyway? It is a huge deal because the  life expectancy of vegetarians is much higher than meat eaters. And the reason  is quite simple. Vegetarian food doesn’t have some of the harmful ingredients  and fatty acids that meat does. The digestion of vegetarian food is also quite  simple and doesn’t need our body to produce harmful acids to break the  compounds. Scientists claim that the risk of a vegetarian contracting cancer is  40% lesser than the non-vegetarians. Also, the risk of heart disease is reduced  by 30% on an average for any vegetarian. Healthychoices play an important  role in the body’s overall health and should not be ignored by insurance  companies.

All companies do not consider  this variable in calculating premiums, however. The reason is that, the medical  tests a person needs to undergo while procuring insurance doesn’t show whether  he/she is a vegetarian or not. Smokers can be identified through the GP levels  in the body and a comprehensive result can be obtained about alcohol  consumption. Also, since insurance covers a long time in a person’s life, there  is no way to determine his food choices throughout the period. But, some argue  that unlike other addictions, a person once a vegetarian will remain a  vegetarian. There are some animal loving corporations that introduced policies  with up to 6% discounts for vegetarians! So…eat your veggies and save not just  on food, but on insurance too!