Vitality Life Insurance is exciting!
Hopefully, I’ve managed to keep you from turning away to the next post about music or food.
I’ll own up to being one of those people who hate insurance policies. If my washing machine breaks, I buy a new one. If the Telly packs in we find a better one. If the Sky box breaks, we cancel the subscription, only to be offered a new box for FREE! The main reason I hate insurance is that you seem to pay out every month and never claim anything back.
My Vitality Life
We’ll start off by saying that I am in no way affiliated with Vitality Life or am I a financial advisor. There are many people who are more qualified for advice than me on this subject. However, I do have experience of this policy and that will make a huge difference. One of the main reasons for writing this is I’ve been asked about the policy and I think it’s sometimes hard to get all the points out.
My old school friend David Wilson, dropped a subtle hook on Facebook in August 2015 about, Cinema Tickets and Starbucks! Every time he mentioned these he was also photographed running. Over a few weeks, I eventually bit, and had to ask him what he was up to. It turns out that he had bought himself Vitality Life Insurance and was reaping the benefits. I did a lot of online research, as I was sceptical about this.
Vitality Life (which is part of Prudential) offers Life Insurance with benefits. Their policy rewards you for learning about your lifestyle and improving your health. The main benefit which people get to know first is one Starbucks Drink a week and a Cinema Ticket per week. After a quick online quote from them, I started to way up the benefits. The Policy was slightly more than I was currently paying, but we would get some perks. So I went back to David and talked through the policy and options. And this is why I would suggest getting a quote from a financial advisor who uses the policy over an online quote or random IFA. For an extra £4, we could add our children to the policy which would qualify them for the cinema ticket perk too.
I was sold and our policy started on September 15th, 2015. This date sticks in my mind a little too well as my Father suffered a massive heart attack on the 16th. Our policy consists of Myself and Catherine and a minimum cover for our two kids.
Vitality Life – Vitality Points
The key part of Vitality Life is tracking of activity. Activity gets turned into vitality points and the more points you earn the more you receive in benefits.
As a new policyholder, you start in Bronze status. This is 0 points, your aim is to progress up through 4 status levels to gain better rewards.
To qualify for the rewards you need to complete an online health check questionnaire. This includes questions about your height, weight, fitness and if you smoke. For completing this you earn points but earn more points for being a non-smoker.
Next up you ideally need to connect some form of step tracker to your account. I went with Fitbit Charge HR as a few of my friends had one. Although the Heart Rate doesn’t currently add anything to the policy. It was an interesting addition to my fitness improved.
Finally, in terms of set up, you need to connect a Starbucks card to your accounts and confirm it. After all, you’ve looked at this for vitality benefits/rewards. Vitality has an app which is one of the easiest ways of tracking all the info.
Over the course of a week, you need to acrew 9 points to unlock your Starbucks drink and Cinema Tickets. With our policy that means 9 points between Catherine and myself, to earn two Starbucks and 4 cinema Tickets. To clarify that is 9 points in a week to get the reward. So next week I earn 9 points and get the reward again and again and again. Hopefully, you get the idea.
To earn points for an activity you need to do steps.
7,000 steps = 3 points (Walking the kids to school in the morning is a 3,000 step roundtrip)
10,000 steps = 5 points
12,500 steps = 8 points
The maximum amount of points you can earn as an individual is 40 point per weeks (which is 80 points per couple).
As you can see from the points above its possible to earn more than the 9 points in 1 sitting. I’ve earned 8 points in a day from walking the kids to school and being active at work. Catherine has been known to hit 16,000 steps in a day easily.
Vitality Life Rewards
9 Points in a week
Cinema Tickets for Vue or Cineworld (our cover is 1 cinema ticket per policyholder ie 4 tickets per week)
Starbucks Drink (our cover is 1 drink per adult policyholder ie 2 drinks per week)
Vitality Discounts
All members
50% off Monthly Membership at Virgin Active gym
50% off a pair of trainers at Sweat Shop (our cover is 1 pair per policyholder ie 4 pairs per year)
50% off a Garmin device (One per Adult member)
Up to 12 months Weight Watchers Membership for £30
75% off Champneys Spa Resort Breaks
Up to 50% Cashback at LloydsPharmacy
Status Level based Rewards
Up to 50% cash back on a bike at Evans Cycles
Up to 40% off Return economy flights (within UK and Europe) with British Airways
Up to 25% discount at Mr and Mrs Smith
Money off Rail Tickets with Eurostar
Vitality Apple Watch
As of the Beginning of December 2017, you can now claim a Vitality Apple Watch as part of your plan. The discounted deal potentially enables you to get a new Apple Watch 3 for £29. The remaining cost if split across 24 monthly payments of a maximum of £12.50. This can be reduced all the way down to £0 if you generate enough points over the course of the month.
The even better part is that as a joint policyholder both adult members can claim their Vitality Apple Watches too.
Vitality Life – The Status Levels
Behind the Vitality Life policy is an achievement status level. This is used to motivate you towards more activity and a higher fitness level. The More activity you do, the more points you earn. The more Vitality Points you earn the better the rewards are.
The Levels for a joint policy are
0 Points – Bronze Status
1200 Points – Silver Status
2400 Points – Gold Status
3600 Points – Platinum Status
If we were to hit Platinum Status, at the end of 12 months of the policy, Catherine and I will receive a cash back bonus of £200. Our monthly payments would also get a 3% discount for the following year. This will keep rewarding us year on year as long as we keep hitting the Platinum Status over 12 months.
If we were to stay in Bronze status, we would get No annual Cashback or premium discounts! The motivation of earning £200 at the end of the year is more than enough to keep me moving.
Vitality Life – Is it worth it?
For me, it was a no-brainer. We were paying out for Life cover and unless I died, we’d not benefit from it. At least with Vitality Life, we get something back. Obviously, your quote will be different from mine as your life circumstances will also be. However, If I show you the value we will get back out of it, you can see the monthly value of it!
Our policy has been running 6 months, we’re halfway through gold and are expecting to hit Platinum by the end of April (or policy will renew in September).
Annual Cash Back £200 – For reaching platinum status in the year.
Starbucks Drinks (I always get large) £306 per year – based upon 2 drinks per week for 1 year
Cinema Tickets (Although we currently use our tickets every week, let’s assume we go 3 out of 4 weeks) £1136 per year (2 adults and 2 kids)
If you add these up and divide them by 12 you’re looking at £136 per month in rewards.
My monthly premium is less than half of that!
Another way of looking at it is that I spotted the monthly membership for Cineworld for a couple was more than our policy cost alone.
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