Health Insurance for HIV Positive People
People diagnosed with HIV or the AIDS virus frequently faces a rigorous process when getting a health insurance policy. Because of intervening administrations, you will possibly be written the health insurance coverage, but the stigma doesn’t close on that point. Holding on to and using the health insurance policy can prove another major undertaking with many potential problems.
Insurance companies are often involved in many unlawful practices, which are considerably discriminating and illegal towards HIV infected people. Some of them have been outlined below for your benefit.
Underwriting is a crucial component of all insurance carriers. It is used to determine the potential risk involved in insuring an insurance applicant. The underwriter uses the information obtained to determine if the applicant meets the companies criteria for extending the applicant a formal insurance policy. The agent who writes the policy will ask you a series of health questions approved by the State Department of Insurance. California residents are protected from an insurance company from testing blood for the presence of antibodies, which has been determined as a likely cause of AIDS.
It is also illegal for any company to assess risk on the basis of sexual orientation. Many a times, insurance companies violate this law by denying coverage to single males, implying on notions of them being gay or belonging to a certain area, actively known for gay community.
It is common for insurance companies to exclude what are deemed pre-existing conditions. These are conditions or illnesses that the applicant had before submitting the application to the insurance company. The insurance company has to right to issue the insurance policy with these conditions excluded from the policy coverage.
In case of HIV infected people, often the symptoms are noticeable to the insurer, as they deal with the medical aspects on daily basis, and are well aware of it. Most of the time, suspecting that a person may have HIV infection, the policy is designed in such a way to avoid claims in future.
Apart from this, companies also use the application form for limiting their liabilities in future. Cases where a current policyholder is found HIV infected, insurer often deny the claims on the ground of furnishing insufficient information in the application form. Court has directed rules, where by a claim in such case can only be denied, if this was done deliberately on the policy holders part. An insurance company can not refute a claim, if the policy holder has omitted certain information because he himself was not aware of it.
Hubert Miles is a blogger for many websites and the webmaster of Health Insurance Articles and Quote For Health Insurance websites.
