Discrimination against women rejected

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 4

Discrimination against women rejected

PA Wellington The Insurance Council of New Zealand has denied discriminating against women over health and travel insurance cover. The claim was made by the Human Rights Commission which called for removal of insurance policies that excluded cover for specifically female illnesses. The council said that what the commission had described as discriminatory was nothing more than recognised insurance practice. The council said that while exclusions relating specifically to pregnancy and childbirth were reasonably common, the practice of excluding “specifically female-related illnesses" was uncommon.

The council said, “Insure, ance is based on the happening of some accidental

or fortuitous event, and it has never been appropriate to provide insurance in respect of events which amount to certainties. “It is, for instance, certain that a pregnant woman will be ’incapacitated’ using that word in its ordinary sense, for some period during her pregnancy and after it.” The council said the insurance industry had found that travel insurance was used or abused in circumstances which were closely akin to fraud, in too many cases where cover was extended to meet the circumstances of pregnancy or childbirth. “Insurance operates to indemnify against specific perils. We believe it is for the underwriter to decide which perils should be included in his policy.” If a company decided that

it wished to insure risks arising from pregnancy and childbirth, that was a legitimate commercial decision for it to take. “A decision made on underwriting grounds and experience that it does not wish to underwrite such risks is no more discriminatory than a decision not to underwrite motor-vehicle insurance is discriminatory against motorists,” said the council. “The Insurance Council regrets that the commission should use the word ‘discriminatory’ with an apparent freedom that devalues it.

“Greater care must be taken with the use of a word which has acquired considerable emotional weight. That care has not been exercised in this case.”