Life Insurance For Abstainers

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30827, 12 August 1965, Page 11

Life Insurance For Abstainers

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.AJ

LONDON, August 11.

An American insurance company that sells policies only to non-drinkers has announced that health insurance sales were doing so well that it would enter the life insurance market on the same basis in the autumn.

Arthur Demoss, an abstainer who established the company in 1959 stresses he is not against drinking but has found that the only way to eliminate the one out of 10 who might be classified as a “problem drinker” is to offer policies solely to abstainers.

Each of the 250 employees of his company are abstainers.

The insurance executive concedes that the job of policing the occasional sipper is almost impossible, but feels that most employees and policy holders keep to the spirit of their contracts. If they do not, he said, they will be dropped from the fold, though so far this has not happened. A total of 37,008 health insurance policies were sold in the first six months, up 42 per cent from new sales of 26,033 in the comparable 1964 period. Mr Demoss said that experience has shown him that those who imbibe have approximately 20 per cent higher health costs than the abstainer. In addition, he

notes, divorce rates for the non-drinkers are substantially lower. Rates for health policies to non-drinkers are roughly 20 per cent below premiums on other contracts.