Burgesses launches new ‘Equality’ protection
INSURANCE TIMES - 10TH SEPTEMBER 2002
Specialist underwriting agency Burgesses is extending its range of non-discriminatory covers with a mortgage payment protection insurance product that includes complications arising from pregnancy.
Burgesses’ new Equality product offers individual or joint cover against the risks of disability and unemployment irrespective of age, gender, sexuality or occupation.
The cover includes sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and the physical complications that can arise from pregnancy – which Burgesses maintains is a UK first.
Equality – available to anyone aged between 18 and 65 – pays up to £2,500 per month after a waiting period of 30 days.
The product is being welcomed by the Equal Opportunities Commission which is urging the Government to introduce tougher legislation.
The EOC’s Nicola Frost comments: “The Sex Discrimination Act permits discriminatory treatment in insurance by reference to actuarial or other data on which it is reasonable to rely (Section 45).
“However, the social undesirability of continuing to use gender as a determinant in insurance is particularly obvious and the Act should be repealed.”
This view is echoed by registered charity Women’s Health Concern which describes the treatment of women by most insurers as ‘deplorable’.
Burgesses managing partner Simon Burgess comments: “Discrimination on the basis of age, gender or sexuality is not acceptable practice in the 1990s and has quite sinister implications because it puts forward a template for insurers to cherry pick on the grounds of genetic information.”
