Health Researchers Claim Insurance Cos. Hold $1.88 Billion in Fast Food Stocks
Cambridge Health Alliance researchers studying the investments of health and life insurance companies have apparently concluded that the companies own some $1.88 billion, or 2.2 percent, of the stock issued by the five leading fast-food companies. Arun Mohan, et al., “Life and Health Insurance Industry Investments in Fast Food,” American Journal of Public Health, April 15, 2010. The analysis relied on shareholder analysis from the Icarus database, accessed in June 2009.
The researchers, who call for the insurance companies to divest themselves of these holdings or to leverage their holdings “to force the adoption of practices consistent with widely accepted public health principles,” consider the insurance companies’ investments inconsistent with their missions and public health role. The authors speculate that the investments may return more than the costs of insuring people who consume fast food or the companies may be investing this way through inadvertence, that is, “insurers are unaware of the social impact of their investments because there has been little attention paid to the issue historically.”
According to a news source, one of the insurance companies named in the study disputed the data, while another could not verify whether the numbers were accurate and suggested that many of the stocks could be held in index funds, which means the insurer did not select the stocks but held them because they were index components. One of the researchers was quoted as saying that the insurers are “profiting directly off the people who eat fast food, and if that leads to obesity or cardiovascular disease, they’ll charge you more for premiums if you have some of those conditions. They’re making money in either case.” See WSJ Health Blog, April 15, 2010.
