Written by Rupert Kircz | Tuesday, 10 March 2009 | There are 5 comments
Higher premiums for obese people are considered perfectly normal
A woman who is an Equality Officer for her Local Council in Ireland has instituted a court case claiming that she was discriminated against because of her weight by Eaglestar Life Assurance. She is claiming that the life assurance company discriminated against her when they said that her life insurance policy was to be subjected to a 100% increase because of her alleged obesity.
Higher premiums for overweight and obese people are considered perfectly normal in the insurance industry because of the significantly greater risk of illness. Illnesses such as heart disease, strokes and cancer occur far more often in those people with excess weight. Bernadette Treanor, who is 49 years old would change the whole insurance industry if she was to win her case. If she could set a precedent that anyone who was overweight would pay the same life insurance premiums as those people of a normal weight, normal weight individuals would pay bigger premiums and the obese policyholders would get a reduction.
Overweight people are not the only ones who pay higher life insurance premiums. Smokers and people who indulge in high risk sports or activities all have to pay higher premiums. If Mr Justice John Hedigan who will be ruling on this case decides in favour of Bernadette Treanor he could open up a whole flood of new applications for reduced premiums not only from overweight people but also from smokers who would say that they could not be discriminated against either.
It is a very difficult thing to decide whether people are overweight because they choose to be overweight, (large numbers of overweight people say that they choose to be the weight that they are) or whether they are suffering from a disability which makes them unable to change the way they are.
Ukmedix News will keep you informed on the outcome of this case but we feel that it is unlikely that burn Ms. Treanor will get away with paying the life insurance premium of a normal person unless she loses weight.
There are 5 comments on this article.
Ian said:
She is 5' 3" and was 15 stone when she got the coverage. That gives a Body Mass Index of 37.62.
That is not just overweight but super obese.
Joan said:
Insurance companies should not disciminate. It would be a free ride for them to have only healthy people on their books, surely they have to take the good with the not so good....or is it only a question of making money.
anto said:
stay away from eagle star they just take your money
money money money said:
What about people who drink alcohol regularly, are they paying higher premiums too? Something need to be sorted out legally.
Alex Brindle said:
not sure where Rupert gets his "data", but very few people who are overweight choose to be so...surely a lifetime of marginalization, discrimination, blame and ridicule are enough to make you "choose" to be thin. Seems to me that there are a whole lot of thin people with very unhealthy lives that are not being asked to pay higher premiums.
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