We welcome the ABI's intention of issuing a guide to the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) for li...
We welcome the ABI's intention of issuing a guide to the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) for life and disability insurers and will be submitting detailed comments and suggestions on the draft. We also hope that the ABI will consider extending this guide to cover other individualised contracts, such as sickness insurance, and issuing further guides for areas such as motor and holiday insurance.
In our experience, insurance is one of the areas where people with mental health problems often feel that they have been treated unfairly. In a survey carried out by Mind in 1996 25% of respondents who had applied for insurance had been turned down due to a psychiatric diagnosis, with life insurance causing the greatest difficulty. Many people said that they had not bothered to apply because they expected to be turned down. Others had been charged much higher premiums or had to accept additional exclusion clauses.
Mind recognises that insurers are in the business of risk assessment and that many of them take their responsibilities seriously under the Disability Discrimination Act. Our hope is that the ABI's guide will ensure that the existing good practice of some firms is spread throughout the industry.
We particularly welcome the support for awareness training for staff on mental and physical disability. This should ensure that staff are aware of the difference between a mental health diagnosis and learning difficulties or lack of capacity. It may prevent assumptions which have been made in the past that anyone who is in a psychiatric hospital is incapable of handling their financial affairs.
We also welcome the stress on transparent and open decision making. Mind believes that people should have the right to be told the reason for any refusal or restriction of insurance. In some cases, this may make it easier for them to accept the decision. It also gives them an opportunity to seek proper independent advice if they so wish.
The recognition that relevant information will include not only general actuarial data but also specific information about the individual applicant is also appreciated, as is the suggestion that reasonable time limits should be allowed for claims.
We would also argue that it would be a reasonable adjustment for late claims to be allowed for good reason. Very often those who have developed a mental health problem, particularly depression-related, are in no state to make a claim for many months.
The statement that general exclusions should be made clear to customers at the outset and that cover cancellation clauses if a person happens to have a disability or illness are likely to be unlawful, is also welcomed. This should prevent the sort of case Mind became aware of recently, where a claim relating to a broken leg was rejected because the person had unrelated mental health problems which cancelled cover.
If all these points are adopted across the insurance industry, it should start to make a difference to the negative experience which people with disabilities have in the past had with some insurance companies.
