Companies routinely reject applicants with Aids or who are HIV-positive - itīs time for changeWhich is the least likely group to buy insurance? Twenty-five-year-olds on a stag weekend in Barcelona? Nineteen-year-olds recklessly driving without cover? No, itīs the LGBT community, according to Steve Wardlaw, head of innovative new insurer, Emerald Life. `There is a massive distrust of insurers in the community,` he says, adding that they are 50% more likely to have no insurance at all. `A lot still think they wonīt get cover, especially life insurance, if they are gay. They feel so disenfranchised, they donīt bother.`In my early days as a journalist on a trade paper in the late 1980s I remember well an appalling conversation with the marketing manager of a (then) major insurer when the HIV/Aids epidemic was at its height and insurers were determined to avoid having any gay men on their books. `Theyīre quite easy to spot,` he bragged, as his PR person squirmed. `If the application comes from a middle-aged, single, antique dealer with a Volvo then we know straight away.` Continue reading...
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