Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, April 16, 1997
Michael Dougan of the Examiner Staff
Guarantee Trust Life Insurance, based in Glenview, Ill., announced this week that it will insure HIV-positive applicants who are younger than 49, meet certain health profiles and don't have AIDS.
"What I really like about it is that they are treating (HIV) as a treatable chronic illness, which is entirely appropriate for many people," said Betsy Johnsen, a benefits attorney with the Aids Legal Referral Panel in San Francisco.
The program will initially be offered on a test basis in Guarantee Trust's home state.
Guarantee Trust officials said they are introducing their HIV policies in recognition of the fact that new drugs - specifically protease inhibitors - have dramatically expanded the life span of many people with HIV.
"I think it's extremely encouraging that they're doing it," said California Insurance Commissioner Charles Quackenbush. "It shows that they've been carefully following the medical research on this."
While praising Guaranteed Trust for offering the life insurance, Bay Area insurance specialists and AIDS activists say people infected with HIV have always been able to purchase life insurance but under limited conditions and often for smaller payouts.
"It obviously is a major change," said insurance specialist and AIDS activist Chuck Cole. "The majority of insurance companies have not been selling insurance to people with HIV."
Cole and Johnsen said there have been several ways for HIV-infected people to buy policies - the best being group policies provided at work or through a professional organization.
"Group plans typically don't test for HIV," Johnsen said.
She said life insurance policies are important for people with HIV because they offer the prospect of viatication - in which a company buys out a person's policy at a discount, giving the individual badly needed cash. The company then collects its premium when the person dies.
Cole is Northern California representative for Life Benefactors, a viatication firm. He also lectures before HIV groups about ways to obtain insurance.
Cole said so-called "simplified" insurance policies are another option for people with HIV.
"There are some companies that do not ask an HIV-specific question on some of their simplified issue forms," he said. Nor do they require the physical exams and blood tests often mandated to receive the more common general issue insurance policies.
"Guaranteed issue" policies are also available, Cole added. For these policies, advertised on TV with a pitch toward older customers, "if you're breathing and you can pay the premium, you get it," he explained.
While many require buyers to be a certain age - say 55 and up - others offer policies to people as young as 30, Cole said.
Simplified issue policies can hold face values of up to $100,000, Cole said, but "the lower the face value you ask for, the less scrutiny your application gets. Most people go in the $50,000 to $75,000 range."
One insurance specialist, who asked not to be identified, said some HIV-positive buyers take out several simplified issue policies simultaneously, achieving a total face value as high as that offered by Guarantee Trust while paying less in premiums.
Cole said longevity gains among people with HIV will not spell the end of the viatication business.
Company's plan cheered as proof that nature of illness has taken turn for the better.
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