Insurance companies accused of not giving disabled fair break

Insurance companies are being warned to stop discriminating against persons with disabilities.

The stern warning comes from the Chairman of the Advisory Committee to guide the establishment of a Commission for Improving the Lives of Persons with Disabilities, Edmund Hinkson, during Wednesday’s town hall meeting on the draft 2023-2030 National Policy for Improving the Lives of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).

Hinkson, who was responding to concerns from a member of the audience about the lack of coverage from insurance companies for persons with disabilities, said it was an area he and his team – which includes Senator Andwele Boyce – has been heavily focused on for some time now, with the aim of rooting out the discriminatory practice in short order.

“We met twice with insurance companies and we told them straight that this is an issue – health insurance for persons with disabilities, car insurance and property insurance. We have told them Barbados is signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified it in 2013; we have obligations not to discriminate against people with disabilities, even in the absence of any law,” he said.

“We told them straight that they are discriminating against people with disabilities. Andwele would tell you, when we had the [PWDs policy] first scripted, and then in February and March went back to certain stakeholders and said this is what we have concluded, one insurance company – we not saying who – adamantly said we should change the wording of this particular thing, said ‘I don’t like this paragraph’. We told them we not changing this because it’s a fact of life that you all discriminate.”

Hinkson said when the final draft of the policy finally reaches Parliament, such discrimination will be addressed via legislation.

“In the draft legislation, there is provision that the premiums on insurance policies should be the same as for people without disabilities unless they can show by some actuarial reporting that they should be reasonably [charging] higher premiums to you. We have the draft legislation, Minister [of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey] says he hopes to bring it to Parliament during this financial year…. Hope is coming,” he said.

Humphrey reiterated that the upcoming policy would ensure persons with disabilities make up a particular percentage of people in workplaces.

He stressed that the root cause of discriminatory and disadvantageous practices against differently-abled persons had to be addressed from the ground level before any real changes are seen in the job market.

“We like to say these things are based on merit, but if the system is already broken, how are you going to get the training? The system disadvantages you from the start so you were never able to go to school; you can’t get transportation; when you do go to school the teacher is paying you no mind, so we have to fix the entire system.

“To say that it is based on merit, and merit being defined [as] if you have the same qualifications as somebody else then you get the job . . . is nonsense. I think instead of talking about meritocratic societies and being fair, we have to be deliberate, we have to be purposefully determined that we are hiring persons with disabilities. The only way we can right the wrongs is to make it like affirmative action, where we know the system has disadvantaged people and we are deliberately righting a wrong,” Humphrey contended.

(SB)