New UK insurer launches LGBT-friendly range

The founders of a new UK insurance company, Emerald Life, have claimed that UK insurance companies are failing to deal with LGBT customers in an appropriate and welcoming manner. Founder Steven Wardlaw and CEO Heidi McCormack suggest that 8 out of 10 LGBT customers are unhappy about the treatment they have previously received from such firms. Such treatment can include making assumptions about the gender of a customer’s partner and the fact that he or she may have children. Wardlaw also cites clauses that exclude HIV/Aids related claims and absurd instances such as insurers being prepared to insure pilots, but not cabin crew. In response, Emerald has launched a variety of LGBT-friendly policies including home, term, pet and travel insurance. There are an estimated 2.2m LGBT people in the UK.

There is a UK insurance company that will give you cover if you are an airline pilot, but not if you are cabin crew. There are travel insurance policies that routinely bar anyone with HIV, even if the person has lived with it for years and has an almost undetectable viral load. There are policy documents that can’t cope with a Mr and Mr heading, and insist on describing married gay couples as Mr and Mrs. And family discounts that won’t be applied to homosexual partners. There are call centres that assume that when you mention your partner the person is the opposite sex.

So say Steven Wardlaw and Heidi McCormack, respectively founder and chief executive of new insurer Emerald Life. They argue that while Britain’s 2.2 million lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender/transexuals rarely suffer serious direct discrimination by banks and insurers, the latter are still failing to deal with customers in a way that makes them feel comfortable when buying.

“People want to know that when they call, for whatever reason, they are not going to have to correct the call centre person about their partner’s gender, or that there aren’t going to be issues over who the beneficiary of their policy will be, or that they may have children,” says Wardlaw. “Eight out of 10 LGBT individuals say they are not happy with the way they have been treated in the past.”

Emerald believes the LGBT community is still waiting for a basic equality of experience in financial services, and last week launched a range of LGBT-friendly home insurance, term insurance, and wedding and pet cover, with travel insurance coming in May.

Yet financial services companies have revolutionised their approach over the past decade. Lloyds is running an advertising campaign that prominently features a same-sex couple in the midst of a proposal, while Nationwide and many other banks and insurers have thriving LGBT groups.

In the US, PayPal cancelled expansion plans in North Carolina in protest at controversial new rules that discriminate against LGBT citizens. Banks and insurers often come top of Stonewall’s annual listings of the best places for LGBT employees, with Lloyds and Barclays star performers in 2016.

Can it really be the case that airline cabin crew are turned down for insurance because they are assumed to be gay? And why? Wardlaw says that during the course of the past two years, while researching and creating Emerald, he has been in commercial discussions with a number of insurers.

He signed confidentiality agreements so cannot disclose specific details, but he found that in one instance, in the pull-down menu for occupation, if the person selects airline pilot then cover is granted, but if the occupation is changed to cabin crew – and all other details left identical – the person is declined for cover.

When Wardlaw asked the insurer why, the suggestion was that cabin crew may have lifestyles that would result in more claims. But this wasn’t for a life insurance product, it was for home insurance, which makes it all the more mystifying. Are gay cabin crew so likely to make claims on their buildings and contents policies they are just too risky compared to pilots? Wardlaw admits he is befuddled, adding that he never got a straight, so to speak, answer.

More understandably, travel insurance policies contain clauses that exclude claims arising from HIV/Aids, or heavily load the premium if anyone discloses their status.

But Wardlaw says many of these clauses were created in the early days of HIV treatment, and no longer reflect the reality of modern treatments that have massively improved survival rates. Emerald’s travel insurance won’t ignore HIV/Aids, but will, Wardlaw says, price it rationally and reasonably.

So how much will Emerald’s products cost? For many in the LGBT community, corporates sticking the label “gay” or “gay-friendly” on their products is a by-word for charging extra. Is Emerald Life any better? When Guardian Money price-tested the products, the results were mixed. Its life insurance was expensive, its home insurance middling, but its wedding insurance very cheap.

The life insurance quote cost £99 a month for £200,000 of cover, while on comparison sites for the same age and address, the cheapest was around £35.

But its wedding cover is the lowest cost in the market. For couples tying the knot, but worried that for whatever reason (sickness etc) they might have to cancel the event, Emerald charges £50 for £12,500 of cover, compared to £60 at John Lewis for £10,000 of cover.

Critics argue that an LGBT-only company is discriminatory itself. But Wardlaw says it will take all comers, and if you want to buy cover for your wedding, gay or straight, then Emerald is an obvious choice.

As Wardlaw says: “That’s the point. We don’t discriminate.”

When the computer says ‘no’

Adam and Steve: dealing with their insurer was ‘an unpleasant wake-up call’

Garden designer Adam Robinson (above left) experienced first-hand how insurance companies can sometimes discriminate against LGBT customers. He was outraged when he called his existing provider for a health insurance quote on behalf of his husband, Steve, and daughters. The insurer told him they were finding it very difficult to find him a policy as “they had to pull a number of strings, because on their system they could not put a quote together as the parents couldn’t be the same sex”.

“In our day-to-day lives, Steve and I tend to forget we are a same sex couple with children, but obviously this is still a surprise for some,” he says. He had been with the insurance company for a number of years and thought it would be a simple task to make use of the family discount on health insurance.

“It was a bit of a throwback to the 1970s – you would think insurance companies would have come across many situations like my family and adapted their criteria accordingly,” he says. “Up until that point, I have generally had good experiences with insurance companies, so you can imagine it was a huge surprise. My partner and I are just a normal couple with children. We often forget that our way of life is, perhaps, a problem or a surprise for some people. It was an unpleasant wake-up call.

“Generally, I do think things have moved on. I would like to believe the insurance industry has woken up to the potential market and am hoping this will be the motivation they need to change some of the prejudices that still exist. I would like to see a number of things changed. Instead of pages and pages of tick boxes, I would like a more personal response rather than just a computer saying ‘X’ based on the data you have provided.”