Hartford Puts Gay Drivers in the Front Seat

The Hartford Financial Services Group says it is now giving reductions of up to 25 percent in premiums to Gay and unmarried straight couples, just as it has done for legally married couples.

The Hartford's new policy took effect last fall but only recently gained attention because of full-page ads it has run in two national Gay magazines, The Advocate and Out.

Although the Hartford was not the first insurance company to offer discounts to Gay couples, it is the first to aggressively publicize the policy and seek out the Gay market.

"Some companies will write domestic partner [policies], said Bruce Hale, The Hartford's director of diversity marketing. "In some companies, the agents will sort of wink-wink and code people as married, sort of a 'don't ask, don't tell' kind of thing.

"We're clearly the first [insurance company] to explicitly reach out and market to the Gay and Lesbian domestic partner community," Hale said. The Hartford, he says, views the change as "a fairness-in-pricing initiative, rather than some sort of sweeping social cause issue."

Grant Lukenbill, who has written and consulted on corporations' Gay-related policies, called The Hartford's move "an important development," especially given that "the insurance industry in general has been rather slow in the whole arena of Gay and Lesbian equal rights issues."

"What [The Hartford has] done," says Liz Winfield, president of Common Ground, a consulting firm specializing in Gay workplace issues, "is take this whole concept of marketing to the Gay community to its next logical level - providing products and services to us that our heterosexually married counterparts get automatically."

The impact of The Hartford's action could be significant. Steve Goldstein, senior vice president for communications at the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group, says the institute has been encouraging companies to develop underwriting criteria that take into account Gay couples.

"Insurers do not practice exclusion," Goldstein said. "It serves no purpose for many companies to deny people certain benefits that other companies will allow them. ... The primary effect of The Hartford's move is that many other companies will say, 'Wait a minute, we don't want to lose all that business so maybe we need to address that.'"

At the same time, Goldstein cautions, "What's right for one company might not be right for another."

For years, married couples have been considered more responsible drivers and therefore enjoyed lower premiums. The Hartford says it now believes that members of "diverse households," with "emotional and financial commitments" to loved ones, are similarly lower risk - households that include Gay and straight domestic partners, as well as widows, widowers, and divorced people with custody of children.

Speaking of Gay couples as well as other "diverse households," Joyce Willis, a spokesperson for The Hartford, said, "We estimate this is a $10 billion market [for car insurance]. We intend to capture this market. ... This is why we're [giving discounted rates]. It's smart business policy."

The first company to offer discounts to Gay couples was Aetna, which treated Gay and straight domestic partners in the same household the same as married couples for underwriting purposes. Aetna's car insurance operation was acquired by Travelers Property Casualty, and Travelers renewed the policy last July, according to spokesperson Keith Anderson. But Travelers does relatively little consumer marketing, instead relying on its 60,000 independent agents to publicize the policy, said Anderson. The Hartford's ads are the first by a national company seeking to tap the Gay car insurance market.

The Hartford's ad, designed by Boston-based Arnold Communications, reads, "The Hartford offers auto insurance discounts to Gay couples. We also offer discounts to Lesbian couples. Heck, we offer discounts to heterosexual couples. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)"

To obtain the lower rates, domestic partners fill out a supplemental application in which they affirm that they live together in a "committed relationship of mutual caring," are jointly responsible for their living expenses, and expect their partnership to be longterm.

The Hartford's Hale and Willis said Gay couples can currently obtain the discount in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Maryland's state Insurance Department has approved it, Hale said, and The Hartford hopes to seek approval in Virginia later this year. The proposal is pending in New York.

Four Deep South states - Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana - refused to allow The Hartford to offer discounted rates to Gay couples. Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana all mentioned their bans on same-sex marriages in turning down The Hartford.

In rejecting The Hartford's application to offer multi-car discounts to domestic partners, Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said he would not "allow my office to be used as a tool to encourage and reward conduct that clearly violates the policies of this state," according to Southern Voice, a Gay newspaper.

The Georgia Equality Project, a Gay political organization, charged Oxendine had "overstepped the bounds of his office and ignored his responsibility to the consumers of this state."

Hale said it is "too early" to tell how successful the new Hartford discounts will be.

"We've written hundreds of domestic partner policies since the program was launched last year," he said, "and now we expect with the advertising to the Gay community that we'll be writing many more. ... It'll be a few months before we can tell whether it will be a real successful product."

Other companies are likely to be watching closely. Dave Mulryan, president of Mulryan/Nash, an advertising agency that helps large companies target Gay consumers, has served in the past as a consultant to the Insurance Information Institute. He says, "The insurance companies are like any other company: If there is a perceived profit, they will do it. ... The only rule that management is measured on is its profitability."

In the area of home insurance, the institute's Goldstein said, the issue of whether the owners are Gay or straight does not come up because the house is insured and the insured people are on the deed.

"It wouldn't matter whether they're a married couple or a Gay couple or a brother and sister," Goldstein noted.

Judith Schaeffer and Eileen Ryan of Alexandria, Va., ended their policy with State Farm. They now have a policy with Nationwide, which offers a multi-car discount to Gay couples as long as the cars are jointly titled. (by Clint Steib)

But things change when it comes to car insurance, as many Gay couples have learned, including Judith Schaeffer and Eileen Ryan, a longtime Lesbian couple who live in Alexandria, Va.

Schaeffer and Ryan were customers of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the country's largest car insurer, for most of the 20 years they have been together. But it wasn't until 1994 that they learned that the company provided discounted auto insurance for multi-car households.

But the couple was also told that State Farm offered this lower rate only if the occupants of multi-car households are married to each other or related by blood.

"Our State Farm agent," the couple wrote to the company's general counsel in Bloomington, Ill., "has therefore informed us that although we are among his best customers, State Farm will not allow us to have this discount. This type of discrimination makes no sense from any standpoint - business, ethical or legal."

"We live together, we own a home together, State Farm insures that home and it insures our vehicles," the couple said. "We are as entitled to your multi-car household discount as any other household."

But State Farm officials replied only by reiterating their policy, noting it was legal under Virginia law and indicating that they had no plans to revise it.

The couple's agent suggested that if they put their two vehicles in one name only, he could get them the discount, with the other person listed as an additional driver and fully covered. "We saved nearly $200 a year," Schaeffer said.

But subsequently, Schaeffer took a closer look at the policy, and found that as the additional driver, she would not be insured when she drove a rental car. Under the policy, only the named insured person - in this case Ryan - and a spouse or relative, "which State Farm does not consider me to be," says Schaeffer, was covered.

"That was the end of our relationship with State Farm," says Schaeffer.

Last month, Schaeffer and Ryan took a policy with Nationwide Insurance, which gives a multi-car discount to Gay couples as long as the cars are jointly titled.

Steve Witmer, a spokesperson for State Farm, told the Blade that his company changed the definition of who can qualify for multi-car discounts to include Gay couples who jointly own their cars or have both cars in one name.

"This was just one more way we're trying to keep our best customers," Witmer said. "It was viewed that this was a positive step we can make."

But Schaeffer said State Farm's revised policy is different from what a married couple would get, and amounts to "second-class citizenship" for Gay couples.

"It's a lesser policy," she said. "It does not give you coverage if you're renting a car, and if you buy a new car you're not automatically covered [for 30 days]" as a married heterosexual couple is under the multi-car discount.

"It's just another form of discrimination against Gay and Lesbian couples," she said. "The policy we have with Nationwide is the same policy that married couples would have. ... I can't see any basis for [State Farm's] discriminatory arrangement."

Asked about Schaeffer's criticism, State Farm's Witmer said, "I'm not going to debate a particular policy holder." He said the same limitations that apply to Gay couples under the multi-car discount policy also apply to unmarried heterosexual couples.

"I don't know the specific rationale for drawing the line where we draw the line," Witmer said.

Discrimination in insurance, said Schaeffer, is "something that's absolutely not fair to Gay and Lesbian households, and our community should not put up with it.

"I think it's terrific," she said, "that The Hartford has recognized there are people other than heterosexuals ... who are consumers and have families and live lives just like everyone else."

But the problems Gay couples encounter with car insurance, Schaeffer said, "is just one of the numerous protections for our families that we are denied" because Gays are barred from legally marrying.

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