Health Insurance Guide for HIV Positive Men and Women

People infected with AIDS often face a critical issue of obtaining a health insurance. Chances are that due to intervening governing bodies, you may be granted the health coverage, but the stigma does not end there. Keeping and using that health insurance coverage can prove another major task facing many hindrances.

Insurance companies are frequently involved in activities that many deem inappropriate like discriminating against HIV infected people. Below are some points you should watch out for.

An important part of any insurance company is it’s underwriting. The underwriting procedures allow insurance companies to evaluate the risk of a potential policy holder. This process determines if the applicant is either rejected or accepted. During the application process you’ll be asked a series of health related questions. California residents are protected under law from an insurance company using a blood test report for detecting the presence of antibodies, known as the likely cause of AIDS.

Insurance companies are prohibited under law from assessing a persons risk on the basis of sexual orientation. This is a common area where insurance companies discriminate without probable cause. Many companies have been found declining single males within certain age categories who live in areas considered as gay friendly.

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 the case of HIV infected people, frequently the symptoms are detectable to the insurer because they deal with the medical reports daily and are well aware of conditions of past and future illnesses. Most of the time, suspecting that an applicant may have the HIV infection, the insurance policy is written in such a way to avoid future claims.

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 Medical Insurance Tips and Health Advice websites.