Health Insurance for HIV Positive People
People diagnosed with HIV or the AIDS virus frequently faces a rigorous process when getting a health insurance policy. Because of intervening administrations, you will possibly be written the health insurance coverage, but the stigma doesn’t close on that point. Holding on to and using the health insurance policy can prove another major undertaking with many potential problems.
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.
It is also illegal for any company to assess risk on the basis of sexual orientation. Many a times, insurance companies violate this law by denying coverage to single males, implying on notions of them being gay or belonging to a certain area, actively known for gay community.
When extending health insurance coverage, the policies are frequently configured to omit any sickness or injuries which have been demonstrated prior to the insurance policies in force date. This signifies that whenever the policy holder has sustained an illness prior to the date the policy was accepted, then the policy holder can’t claim the expense of future treatment for that particular illness or any illness stemming from the illness.
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.
