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	Life, Health Insurers Invest in Fast Food Stocks Fri Apr 16, 2010 6:14 am

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DoctorNutopia

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Post subject: Life, Health Insurers Invest in Fast Food Stocks

Life, Health Insurers Invest in Fast Food Stocks

April 15, 2010 - If life and health insurance companies really care abouthealth and wellness, why do they invest large sums in fast-food firms?

The question comes from members of Cambridge Health Alliance, aHarvard-affiliated medical group. The group finds that as of June 2009, majorinsurers owned $1.88 billion of stock in the five leading fast-foodcompanies.

J. Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry atHarvard, is one of the study authors. Boyd says that insurance companies'business practices belie any claims that their first priority is the well-beingof their clients.

One example of these business practices with negative public healthconsequences, Boyd says, is investment in fast-food companies.

"What spawned our report is our own interactions with insurance companiesthat bespeak an industry highly concerned with money and puts our patients'concerns in second place, if that," Boyd tells WebMD. "They will invest in thelargest entities that cause morbidity and mortality as long as it makesmoney."

Boyd and colleagues name several prominent life and health insurancecompanies and list their investments in fast-food firms:

Northwestern Mutual: $422.2 million ING: $406.1 million Massachusetts Mutual: $366.5 million Prudential Financial: $355.5 million Manulife: $146.1 million Prudential PLC: $80.5 million Standard Life: $63 million Sun Life: $26.8 million Guardian Life: $16.7 million New York Life: $2.4 million MetLife: $2.2 million What should the companies do? Boyd says it would be good if they got out ofthe fast-food business. But he says it would be better if they used theirposition as large stock holders to push the firms to make healthierproducts.

Boyd and colleagues report their findings in the April 15 online issue ofthe American Journal of Public Health.

Insurers Respond WebMD contacted several insurers for comment. Most of the firms noted thattheir investments in fast-food companies represent tiny fractions of theirtotal investments.

"Even if it is a small part of their portfolio, to have $1.88 billioninvested in fast food shows that their first and foremost concern is makingmoney, not promoting health -- at least among those they insure," Boydsays.

That's not how the companies see it.

Northwestern Mutual spokeswoman Jean Towell says Boyd and colleaguesoverestimated the companies' fast-food holdings. (Boyd defends the numbers.)Towell says Northwestern's fast-food stock accounted for less than one-fifth of1% of the company's $136 billion investment portfolio in 2008 -- and much lessin 2009.

"Northwestern Mutual places a high priority on the health of our workforceas well as on the health of our policy holders," Towell tells WebMD. "Healthand wellness is a priority."

However, Towell agrees with Boyd that the point of Northwestern'sinvestments is to "generate high-quality returns" and "to make long-term valueto our policy holders."

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20100415/life-health-insurers-invest-in-fast-food-stocks?src=RSS_PUBLIC

	Life, Health Insurers Invest in Fast Food Stocks Fri Apr 16, 2010 6:14 am

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