Recognition of insurance rights based on same sex marriage in Connecticut and New York
Massachusetts has recognized the right of same-sex couples to marry since 2004, as a result of Goodridge v. Commissioner of Public Health. In October last year Connecticut’s highest court recognized the constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry in Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health. The Connecticut Insurance Department has issued guidance to insurance companies, defining spouse to include a same-sex spouse pursuant to a legal marriage and prohibiting policy forms that do not treat same-sex married partners on the same terms as their opposite sex counterparts.
New York has yet to recognize a right to marry for same-sex spouses. In a court decision last year, however, a judge determined that the same-sex union of a New Yorker lawfully married elsewhere should be recognized as a legal marriage for purposes of her partner’s group health insurance eligibility. The New York Insurance Department Office of General Counsel has since issued formal guidance that same-sex spouses to marriages legally performed outside New York must be treated as spouses for purposes of New York insurance law.
See also Your Government Respects Your Marriage: Developments in New York State Agency Recognition of Same-Sex Couples’ Out-of-State Marriages (Lambda Legal et al, January 2009).
|
|
