{"id":2433,"date":"2009-06-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/canadian-u-s-u-k-life-health-insurers-investing-heavily-in-tobacco-companies\/"},"modified":"2009-06-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-09T00:00:00","slug":"canadian-u-s-u-k-life-health-insurers-investing-heavily-in-tobacco-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2009\/06\/canadian-u-s-u-k-life-health-insurers-investing-heavily-in-tobacco-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"CANADIAN, U.S., U.K. LIFE, HEALTH INSURERS INVESTING HEAVILY IN TOBACCO COMPANIES"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadian Firm Sun Life Has $1 Billion in Two Companies<\/em><\/p>\n

Major U.S., Canadian and British life and health insurance companies have billions of dollars invested in tobacco companies, says a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.<\/p>\n

Wesley Boyd, the study’s lead author, found that at least $4.4 billion US in insurance company funds are invested in companies whose affiliates produce cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.<\/p>\n

"Despite calls upon the insurance industry to get out of the tobacco business by physicians and others, insurers continue to put their profits above people’s health," said Boyd, a faculty member of Harvard Medical School.<\/p>\n

"It’s clear their top priority is making money, not safeguarding people’s well-being," he wrote.<\/p>\n

Tobacco is considered the leading cause of lung cancer and a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke, pulmonary disease and cancer.<\/p>\n

According to the World Health Organization, it is a contributing factor in 5.4 million deaths a year.<\/p>\n

Researchers first revealed that health and life insurance companies had major investments in tobacco companies in 1995 in an article in the British medical journal Lancet.<\/p>\n

"Although investing in tobacco while selling life or health insurance may seem self-defeating, insurance firms have figured out ways to profit from both," Boyd wrote.<\/p>\n

"Insurers exclude smokers from coverage or, more commonly, charge them higher premiums. Insurers profit — and smokers lose — twice over."<\/p>\n

According to the study, U.S. insurer Prudential Financial Inc. has $264.3 million invested among three U.S. tobacco companies, including Reynolds America and Philip Morris.<\/p>\n

Canadian insurer Sun Life Financial Inc., which sells life, disability and health insurance, has a stock portfolio with more than $1 billion in two tobacco companies, including $890 million in Philip Morris.<\/p>\n

Prudential Plc, which sells health and disability insurance, has $1.38 billion in two tobacco companies, including British American Tobacco.<\/p>\n

The study also details the substantial tobacco investments of the U.S. firms Northwestern Mutual and Massachusetts Mutual Life, and the Scottish firm Standard Life Plc.

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Canadian Firm Sun Life Has $1 Billion in Two Companies Major U.S., Canadian and British life and health insurance companies have billions of dollars invested in tobacco companies, says a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Wesley Boyd, the study’s lead author, found that at least $4.4 billion US in insurance company […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary-archives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}