Philip Morris and Life Insurance: What you're Not Being Told

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It’s all over the news headlines; Tobacco company Philip Morris is starting a life insurance firm. Here’s the TL;DR

-          PM is getting into the life insurance business through a wholly owned subsidiary called Reviti

-          Customers will receive discounts off of premiums for; quitting smoking for one year (50% off), switch to an alternative Philip Morris tobacco product (25% off), or switching to any other brand of e-cigarette (2.5% off)

-          Philip Morris one day “hopes to stop selling cigarettes altogether”

At first glance, there’s nothing amiss here. A company, maybe fearing that their historically most popular and successful product is on its way out, and feels the need to diversify. They’re looking to new industries with new opportunities. Hell, they might even convince someone to quit smoking for good. This could even be a good thing, right? Well, lots of people will gladly tell you just that. They might even tell you that Philip Morris suddenly cares about their customers health (despite profiting from of their suffering for decades). I’ll tell you something different.

I’ll tell you that their terms are just a little too convenient. I’ll tell you that this is nothing but a calculated move designed to increase profits, and nothing more. Any positive outcomes are purely coincidental and contrary to actual intention. Notice that someone only needs to quit smoking for one year before receiving their discount. Then they can presumably go right back to buying an early grave from the likes of Philip Morris. Switching to tobacco alternatives doesn’t give you as big of a discount, but 25% is nothing to cough at. If you stick to Philip Morris that is. Using any other alternative tobacco brand will get you a measly 2.5% discount. Their “help people quit smoking” PR move is about as believable as Apple claiming to care about education while only making their “free” software available to schools rich enough to afford their pricey hardware. There’s no health difference between the “alternative tobacco products” that they sell vs. those of their competitors, yet making a healthy change while sticking to a non-PM brand gets you 10x less the benefit? Doesn’t sound very caring to me.

“Well I still don’t see a problem” you might say. “They’re encouraging healthy choices so what’s the harm?”. Well, I don’t know about you, but that “50% off” discount seems a little fishy. 50% off if you quit smoking for one year? Why just one year? Why not a lifetime, in order to encourage the healthy habit, and have it taken away if one does start smoking again? It almost sounds like a PR move, mixed with a sneaky double-dip gambit. Entice people in with the discount, make them quit for a year, and start selling them cigarettes again once the year is up. Only now, they have an insurance customer as well as a tobacco customer – who is now more likely to buy a PM brand of smokes after all the good will the discounted life insurance provided. Good God is this elaborate!

The 25% and the 2.5%, however, are just good business sense. You want to be seen encouraging people to switch to a (technically) healthier alternative, but you want to make sure that they choose your brand of alternative-technical-health. It’s a no-brainer. I’d probably have done that in their position.

So, good show to Philip Morris. I mean, not in the actual sense. They’ve been selling people a ticket to a slow, painful, and early grave and lying about it, for decades. If Philip Morris cared about their customers, they’d burn their company to the ground.

No, what’s to be commended here are the men and women who came up with such an ingenious scheme. Not only will the company gain a revenue stream from an entirely new industry, but that move will also boost sales in both old and new tobacco products. Not only that, but PM will look to be helping people lead more healthy lifestyles, earning praise from corporate sympathizers the world over, and endless free advertising from the media. An absolute genius marketing and PR move. Too bad it’s from a tobacco company, but hey, that’s why we have people like me.

If you disagree, or have another opinion, make sure to let it be known in the comments.