Health Insurance for LGBT

If you live in the UK, the NHS provides everyone with free health care, regardless of their sexuality, but waiting lists are increasing and some procedures are not available. 8% of the British population use private health insurance for a variety of reasons.  A recent survey found that there are twice as many uninsured same-sex couples than uninsured straight, married couples. Whilst there are several reasons for this, a number of steps have been taken over the past few years to close the gap and make it easier for LGBT individuals and couples to get fairly priced health insurance.

In September 2005 the Association of British Insurers’ set out new guidelines in a bid to end the discrimination of the LGBT community in terms of health insurance. This included the removal of lifestyle questions on questionnaires, an end to increased premiums for gay or lesbian policy holders and a stop to automatic requests for HIV tests for LGBT applicants.

Now, everyone applying for income protection, permanent health insurance or life insurance will be asked if they may have been exposed to the risk of HIV infection; whether this is through unprotected sex, intravenous drug usage or blood transfusions in non EU countries. Anyone potentially at risk of having contracted the virus will be requested to take a HIV test, regardless of sexuality.

There is actually a Dutch insurance company who are offering health insurance plan designed specifically for the LGBT community. AGIS have teamed up with a gay rights organisation, COC, in order to offer a gay friendly insurance policy. The policy goes further than just insuring the policyholders; offering them lists of gay-friendly health care providers and specialist health services. This would be a fabulous idea in the UK, but so far we haven’t heard of any such policies.