There are many critical issues for persons with HIV trying to obtain health insurance. Although some governing bodies can step in and force carriers to offer health insurance coverage, the image is hard to shake off. Holding onto the coverage and getting claims paid will likely require you jump many hurdles.

Insurance companies are often involved in many unlawful practices, which are considerably discriminating and illegal towards HIV infected people. Some of them have been outlined below for your benefit.

An important part of any insurance company is it’s underwriting. The underwriting procedures allow insurance companies to evaluate the risk of a potential policy holder. This process determines if the applicant is either rejected or accepted. During the application process you’ll be asked a series of health related questions. California residents are protected under law from an insurance company using a blood test report for detecting the presence of antibodies, known as the likely cause of AIDS.

It is also illegal for any company to assess risk on the basis of sexual orientation. Many a times, insurance companies violate this law by denying coverage to single males, implying on notions of them being gay or belonging to a certain area, actively known for gay community.

It is common for insurance companies to exclude what are deemed pre-existing conditions. These are conditions or illnesses that the applicant had before submitting the application to the insurance company. The insurance company has to right to issue the insurance policy with these conditions excluded from the policy coverage.

In case of HIV infected people, often the symptoms are noticeable to the insurer, as they deal with the medical aspects on daily basis, and are well aware of it. Most of the time, suspecting that a person may have HIV infection, the policy is designed in such a way to avoid claims in future.

Insurance companies have also used the application to limit future liabilities. When policy holders are found to be HIV positive, companies have declined claims citing that policy holders provided inaccurate or incomplete medical history on the application. Courts have stated in many states that insurance companies can only deny these claims if they can prove that the applicant purposely withheld information.

Hubert Miles is a blogger for many websites and the webmaster of Medical Insurance Tips and Health Advice websites.