Insurers told to revise female health exclusions

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 13

Insurers told to revise female health exclusions

PA Wellington Health and travel insurance policies that exclude cover for specifically female illnesses are discriminatory and should be stopped, according to the Human Rights Commission. The commission says there are considerable variations in the exclusions set out in health and travel policies being offered in New Zealand? and makes four recommendations to insurance companies: • That exclusion of specifically . male or specifically female related illnesses be deleted. • •That exclusions related to menopause be deleted.

• That exclusions related to illness or disability arising 'from f pregnancy or childbirth be deleted. • That consideration be given to offering women cover for normal pregnancy and childbirth,* particularly in the case of travel insurance.

Stress-related heart attacks and alcohol-related illness and accidents were examples. Insurance policy clauses relating to “any female condition” were undesirable as well as discriminatory because they could lead to insurance companies maintaining that they were not liable in respect of an illness affecting a specifically male or female part of the body, such as cervical or testicular cancer.

The interpretation of the

exclusion clause in that way would be untenable and as cancer was clearly an illness regardless of where it occurred, the deletion of such clauses would eliminate the likelihood of such misinterpretations occurring.

In a report prepared after several complaints and inquiries from women, the commission said that such exclusion clauses were discriminatoiy in terms of the Human Rights Commission Act unless they were based on relevant actuarial or statistical data. Some insurers maintained that such data are meaningless to establish the relative male and female incidence of an illness absolutely exclusive to one sex, the commission said. While accepting that that was true, it did not accept that there was no other meaningful relevant data.

Comparisons could be made between the cost of illnesses arising from pregnancy, rather than a normal pregancy itself, and the cost factors associated with illnesses normally suffered by men. The majority of complaints from women on health and travel insurance relate to pregancy and childbirth, the commission said.

The insurance industry tended to the view that pregnancy was a voluntary condition, even though statistics indicated a fairly high proportion of un-

planned pregnancies. “However, complications arising from pregnancy or childbirth are clearly no more foreseeable than any other illness, nor is there any evidence to show that risks arising from pregnancy are any greater than the risk of a heart attack through stress, overwork, or obesity. “For these reasons the commission is of the opinion that in the absence of statistical data to the contrary, the risk of illnesses arising from pregnancy can properly be offset against the risk of illnesses which primarily, if not exclusively,, are male illnesses; and that illnesses arising from pregnancy should be included in all cover insuring against the risk of illness.” Ideally women should also be able to obtain travel insurance cover in respect of the risk of pregnancy. The commission said that in the light of the many complaints that it had received from women, there was a worth-while market available to insurance companies wishing to promote insurance for women. Apart from the market factors, the commission said it wanted all insurance companies to review their policies with the aim of eliminating discriminatory practices against women. A commission spokesman said all policies would be monitored and any future complaints dealt with individually.