INSURANCE: A Fat Policy

Along with shrinking clothing sizes and reduced food budgets, overweight people who go on a diet can now have another tangible measure of their progress: life-insurance rates that trim down along with their waistlines. Under a new program being offered to members of Weight Watchers International, Inc., the firm that in the past eight years has signed up some 3,000,000 fatties for weight-reduction programs, premiums for term life-insurance policies are based not only on age but also on bulk. Members who lose the required number of pounds and keep them off for at least six months are given rate reductions.

For the plump, the premiums are often lower than what most major insurance companies ask on regular policies. For the mountainous, the plan offers coverage that conventional insurance companies will not sell, because grossly excess weight is a serious health risk. For women 5 ft. 7 in. tall, for example, American International Life Assurance Co., which underwrites the policies, specifies premiums based on weights ranging from a billowy 159 lbs. ($13.31 for a $5,000 policy at age 40) to a hippopotamine 302 lbs. ($53.66). Policyholders consigned to Class VI, the most cholesterol-clogged division, pay about four times the premium assessed on people of the same age who have reached the Weight Watchers "goal" weights. Thus the cost of an eating spree can now be measured in cash as well as calories.