Me vs. INSURANCE

Helen Sanders, with her article (Me vs. Taxes) in the May issue of THE LADDER has apparently started off a series. Here is a second article concerning the "family status" of the homophile relationship as regards insurance. A third article in this series has been suggested concerning community property in a Lesbian marriage which will appear in a forthcoming issue. -ED.

Recently the two of us threw an insurance agent for a complete loss. We applied for a Home Owner's Policy. We own our house (or at least have a small interest in it, there being two mortgages on the property having prior claim). The house is held in joint tenancy, and we were naive enough to think that taking out such a policy should pose no particular problem therefore.

However, our proposal caused our insurance agent much consternation. There simply wasn't anything in the book to cover such a request! For the regular Home Owner's Policy is for the single family and we, two individuals, it seems, constitute two separate families. Of course, we don't hardly feel that way about it, but it was tough oxplaining to the insurance agent.

So, because of our two-family status, instead of one comprehensive policy with the cheaper premium, we now have three separate policies: all physical loss on the house, personal liability, and fire and theft for our personal belongings.

But that's not all! We had to pay an extra premium to got both names on the personal liability policy two families, you know. And the personal belongings well, that really put the insurance office in an uproar. You see, all our furnishings are jointly owned. It simply isn't a case of that chair is yours, the table mine. Only our clothes are individually owned, and payment for those come out of a joint bank account. So you could say they were jointly owned too, if you wanted to be technical. And could be if