Other companies had argued that domestic abuse was a risk factor that needed to be considered by insurers and that by limiting their ability to take domestic violence into account, they had impaired their ability to offer affordable insurance. Further, life insurers had argued that insuring the life of a victim gave the batterer an incentive to kill and to collect on the policy and, if the insured was killed, the insurance company could be sued for issuing a policy with a knowledge of a history of domestic violence. Terry Fromson, managing attorney at the Women s Law Project, served as a consumer representative to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Fromson has helped develop model laws and provided technical assistance in states where laws have been drafted prohibiting such bias against victims of domestic violence in life, health, disability and property and casualty insurance. To date, thirty-one states have adopted legislation, and more laws are slated to be introduced in other states in the coming years.
Federal legislation is pending.
These new laws generally prohibit insurance companies from refusing to insure someone or charging them a higher premium because that person is, had been, or might become a victim of domestic violence. Some contain provisions prohibiting insurers from writing policies that exclude coverage for injuries resulting from domestic violence, requiring that abuse-related information be kept confidential and that insurers develop protocol for employees, agents and contractors to make sure their interactions with victims do not endanger the safety of the victim or result in disclosure of confidential information. They also include definitions of necessary terms, enforcement mechanisms and remedies to assure that a person complaining of insurance discrimination can obtain appropriate relief. The Women s Law Project is also helping to break barriers in athletics. Male officials are routinely assigned to both girls and boys games, while female officials are assigned only to girls games.