Saturday, June 28, 2014

Discriminatory Insurance Companies - Farmers Insurance; Optima Health





As the cited column in the New York Times referenced in the previous posts noted, legally married same sex couples residing in anti-gay states continue to suffer discrimination as a result of their home state's bigotry.  But the bigotry stems not only from state sponsored discrimination.  Sadly, a number of insurance companies use anti-gay state laws as an excuse to discriminate against married same sex couples.  I've experienced two examples of late.  The lesson to same sex couples? Shop around for coverage.


The first case of gay discrimination involved Optima Health through which both the husband and I had small group plans for our respective businesses.  When we married in April, we investigated to see whether we could be insured as a married couple under either of the two plans.  The answer was "No" since Virginia does recognize your marriage.  The result was that we would have had to maintain the two separate plans and pay steep premiums under both.  When I took my new job with the national title insurance agency, I got coverage through the company's Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan and could secure coverage for the husband.  The savings: roughly $500.00 per month.  I terminated my firms old small group plan through Optima (my daughter was hired by the same company and got health coverage too).  

The more recent case of discrimination involves Farmers Insurance through whom I have had my autos and rental property insured.  When I bought a newer Mercedes last week, the dealership - Tysinger Mercedes which is a huge supporter of HRBOR - indicated that Mercedes has a plan with Liberty Mutual Insurance where Mercedes owners can get discounts (ironically, my new employer has a similar set up).  As a result, I got a quote from Liberty Mutual to price shop for identical coverage.  While the Mercedes discount helped, the big savings - almost $500 per year - was from the fact that Liberty Mutual will recognize the husband and I as being married.  Farmers Insurance, like Optima, is using Virginia's anti-gay laws as an excuse to treat us as single and hit us with higher premiums.  As of Monday morning, my vehicles (two are driven by my daughter) will be insured through Liberty Mutual. 

Again, if you are legally married and live in an anti-gay state, if you can, shop your insurance coverage.  You may have options and you may save money.  In our case, $6,500 a year.  You can also send a message to companies like Optima and Farmers Insurance that they are going to lose business by relying on state sponsored discrimination as an excuse to charge you higher premiums.

1 comment:

BJohnM said...

I live in Florida, but work for a VA based privately owned company. I've argued for years to be able to get my partner of 15 years coverage under our insurance as a domestic partner. For many years, the company used the excuse that it was illegal in VA to offer that (which was true). Now it may not exactly apply, but the law was quietly changed so that, if they desired, companies could offer policies which included domestic partners. The term domestic partner wasn't included in the law's language, but it basically covers them...again, this was related to group policies, and you guys may want to be listed as married rather than domestic partners, and you may not be getting a group policy...which this is about. So with all that said, you might look at the language of the law now...they could have stepped in it.