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 often involved in many unlawful practices, which are considerably discriminating and illegal towards HIV infected people. Some of them have been outlined below for your benefit.

Underwriting is an integral part of any insurance company. This process is designed for assessing the credibility of any prospective policy holder. In other words, underwriting decides the rejection or acceptance of any application form. As an applicant, you may be asked for various health related information, but in California it is unlawful for any insurance company to use the blood test report for detection of antibodies, which is the probable 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.

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 case of HIV infected people, often the symptoms are noticeable to the insurer, as they deal with the medical aspects on daily basis, and are well aware of it. Most of the time, suspecting that a person may have HIV infection, the policy is designed in such a way to avoid claims in future.

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.

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