Costs of covid: Life insurance could get more expensive for the unvaccinated
Thursday, 28 October 2021
Unvaccinated people could face higher costs for life and health insurance, says the managing director of insurer Partners Life.
Naomi Ballantyne said insurers in countries like South Africa experienced a spike in claims from Covid deaths and hospitalisations, and were now requiring people applying for insurance to reveal their vaccination status.
Some who had other health issues were being charged more for their cover, or being told they could have cover, excluding claims related to Covid-19, Ballantyne said.
“In other markets insurers and reinsurers have experienced an impact on claims as a result of Covid. We haven't because we didn't have Covid,” she said.
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With Covid looking likely to becoming endemic in New Zealand insurers that were backed by international reinsurers would ultimately start to ask people about their vaccination status, she said.
“The question in New Zealand is when. Overseas they are already doing it.”
Vaccinated people were less likely to catch and pass on Covid-19 to others, and less likely to be hospitalised with it, and to die of it, Ballantyne said.
“From an insurers point of view if someone is unvaccinated they are exposing themselves to Covid risk, which we have not yet priced, or assumed in our underwriting.
Most infections, hospitalisations, and deaths were people who had not been fully vaccinated, she said.
There were growing signs that unvaccinated people would face costs not faced by fully-vaccinated people, which National leader Judith Collins said would result in a “two-class society” of the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Government vaccine mandates now covered an increasing number of workplaces, and organisations like large law firms and University of Auckland were excluding the unvaccinated from their offices and campuses.
A recent survey of employers found just 9 per cent of employers would not think badly of a job applicant who was not vaccinated compared to one who was.
Some landlords had begun showing a preference for letting their homes only to vaccinated people, though the legality of that remained in question.
Ballantyne saidthere were other implications aside from being able to get work. The ability to get life insurance and health insurance benefits was is one of them.
“We are in the medical science world. We rely on statistics, and we rely on medical science, and so first and foremost we 100 per cent as an organisation are behind the vaccine,” she said.
So far the insurance industry has not asked applicants for their vaccination status.
Health insurers Southern Cross Health Society and NIB said they did not ask applicants, and nor did Cigna, which provides insurance for banks including ASB and ANZ.
All, including Partners Life, said the vaccination status of people who already had life and health insurance would not be affected.
Ballantyne, who was vaccinated, said successful drug treatments for Covid could change insurers’ decisions on whether to ask applicants to reveal their vaccination status.
There had been significant shifts in the causes of death and disablement as medical science advanced and nutrition and lifestyles improved, she said.
“Many of the diseases that once caused mass death such as smallpox, polio, tuberculosis and influenza have been eliminated, or virtually eliminated, by widespread vaccination.”
There had not been a statistically significant rise in claims as a result of adverse reactions to Covid vaccinations, she said.
Like all large employers, Partners Life was considering whether to impose a vaccine mandate on staff, she said.
Several staff had indicated that they would not be vaccinated, Ballantyne said.
“They’ve asked me whether that means they won't be able to work here. I’ve said it might.
“If you don’t believe in life insurance, which is a science and data-driven thing, then probably you shouldn’t work for a life insurance company.”