Guardian Responds to Washington Times Article

Guardian Life Insurance Co. appreciated the opportunity to comment for your story "Insurer ends health program rather than pay out big" (Business, Wednesday). However, a few things need to be clarified.

The policy in question has not been offered to new customers for more than 20 years, but we continued to renew it out of genuine concern for our existing customers. We empathize with Ian Pearl and everyone who has been affected by our decision to stop offering this product to small businesses. That is why we offered replacement policies to the companies affected by our decision. However, this fact was not made clear in the story.

The new, less expensive policies were the best group health policies available from Guardian and were comparable to the policies they replaced. They included in-home nursing care, though not at the 24/7 level of the preceding policy. This is not unusual, as 24/7 in-home nursing care has become rare in the marketplace. In fact, we are not aware of any private- or public-sector insurer that provides this level of coverage. However, the group through which Mr. Pearl receives coverage chose not to accept the replacement policy. Guardian chose to extend Mr. Pearl's coverage at no cost for an additional year.

As a business, we can only offer products that enough customers want and are able to purchase. Regrettably, the article misconstrues the reason for Guardian's decision to discontinue the group health policy in several states. We made this difficult decision to ensure that we offered businesses coverage that was both attractive and affordable. Because of the high premiums associated with the product, fewer and fewer small businesses were willing or able to purchase it.

We have an obligation to our customers to offer products that they want and can afford. As a mutual insurer owned by our policyholders, we have a further obligation to manage the business in a manner that will ensure that we remain competitive and stable over the long term.

RICHARD C. JONES

Senior vice president and chief communications officer

Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America

New York City