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Legal Eagle

Miscellaneous

Q: Getting insurance

In common with many actors, I regularly experience trouble getting insurance at competitive rates. I realise companies must take into account the irregular nature of our work but, too often, the problem comes down to prejudiced beliefs about the supposedly sex-crazed, drugridden life performers lead. What can I do to accentuate the positive without actually committing fraud?

A: My understanding is that the problem to which you refer arises principally in relation to motor insurance and (to a lesser degree) very large life assurance and occasionally, so far as one particular insurance company is concerned, home insurance as well.

Historically, it originated with motor insurance on account of what was regarded as the unacceptable risk of having to pay huge damages for loss of or damage to a 'megabucks' career, in the event of star performers being injured in a motor accident while being given a lift by an insured colleague late at night after the performance.

In relation to life assurance, applicants for cover in excess of a particularly high amount, or who are regarded as having particularly high-risk jobs, are routinely required by many life assurance companies to complete a so-called lifestyle questionnaire in order to determine whether there is a particularly high risk of the insured contracting an AIDS related or life-threatening drug dependency, but if that questionnaire is completed in a manner acceptable to the life assurance company, it should not result in any premium loading or refusal of cover.

So far as home insurance is concerned, the problem arises much less frequently and where it does, it has its origins in members of the acting profession been perceived, whether by reason of their work or otherwise, as being habitually out late at night or away from home a great deal, leaving their home unoccupied for long, high-risk periods. Obviously that is not always the case but it is the perception of some insurers and they are entitled to lay down their own criteria for assessing what risks they are prepared to accept and on what basis.

There are two things you can do. One is to approach certain 'direct' insurance companies, which are believed not to require details of occupation on their proposal forms. The other is to use an experienced insurance broker who knows, or will be able to ascertain which insurance companies, (and there are some) do not require occupation details or lifestyle questionnaires.

In any event, however, you must ensure that you give true and accurate and not misleading answers on any insurance proposal form, if you wish to avoid the possibility of having a claim rejected on grounds of misrepresentation or bad faith.

If your lifestyle is in fact within what insurance companies regard as a high-risk category, then you will just have to shop around for the best quote you can get on that basis, coupled with representations to the insurers about any factors which you consider likely to reduce their risk exposure in your particular case, but bear in mind that such representations can rebound on you because they may result in the insurers seeking to attach unacceptable conditions concerning them to whatever policy they may offer you.

First published October 1997