Insurance law change eyed for women who are beaten

BISMARCK, N.D._North Dakota's insurance commissioner plans to seek changes in state insurance laws to prevent any company from using domestic violence as a reason to avoid selling health insurance coverage to a woman.

A report issued last year by the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C., names North Dakota as one of nine states that allow insurance companies to turn down health coverage for women who have been beaten.

Commissioner Adam Hamm said the Insurance Department had no record of any complaints from domestic violence victims in North Dakota who were denied coverage. The state's four top health insurers, which take in about 98 percent of North Dakota's market, said they did not consider domestic violence a pre-existing condition that would deny coverage, Hamm said.

"We don't have a statute that specifically precludes it. We don't have one that allows it, either," he said. "It's kind of a silent area of the law in North Dakota."

State law does prevent domestic violence from being used to justify the refusal to sell property and casualty insurance, which protects homes, cars and businesses. The law does not extend to health, life and disability insurance.

In 1995, North Dakota House Republicans rejected a bill, offered by then-Rep. Pam Gulleson, D-Rutland, that would have prevented insurers from denying coverage on the basis that the customer had been a domestic violence victim, said Joe Aronson, director of the state Democratic Party. It would have applied to all types of insurance.

"We are happy that the Republicans have come around, 14 years later," Aronson said. Hamm, a Republican, and GOP Gov. John Hoeven "are in need of a history lesson," Aronson said.

Gulleson, who is now state director for U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said her proposal was similar to legislation drafted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a Kansas City, Mo.-based regulatory group, for consideration by state lawmakers.

Three of her four co-sponsors were Republicans, including then-Sen. Rod St. Aubyn, of Grand Forks, who is now director of government relations for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, the state's largest health insurer.

One insurance lobbyist called the measure's language too broad, and a lobbyist for Blue Cross Blue Shield also opposed it during a legislative committee hearing. The deputy insurance commissioner and an assistant attorney general testified in favor of the bill, as did the state Council on Abused Women's Services.

Rep. Rick Berg, R-Fargo, who was chairman of the Legislature's Industry, Business and Labor Committee during the 1995 session, said proponents of the measure offered no examples that North Dakota insurers were denying coverage to domestic violence victims.

"You can see pretty easily, when you've got model legislation that comes forward, and if there's no specific case that, `Hey, this is impacting people in North Dakota,' ... it doesn't surprise me on the vote," Berg said. "It does surprise me that 15 years later, someone is bringing this up."

Gulleson said she had expected the measure to be well-received by legislators because of incidents in other states.

"They basically just dismissed it as a problem," Gulleson said. "They just said, `Well, we don't have evidence that it's occurring.' And, of course, that wasn't my point. The point was, we sure don't ever want to get to the point where we have evidence that it's occurring. We want to make sure it's a banned practice."