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Prudential Offers LGBT Seniors a Piece of the Rock

Prudential Financial’s Group Insurance business has decided to target market long-term care insurance to the LGBT community. The company announced yesterday that it has established the Prudential Affinity Alliance program, essentially a forum for partnering with LGBT organizations backed by a training program for the company’s long-term care sales team. The company’s long-term care sales team will be educated on the unique issues facing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seniors. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) was the first GLBT organization on board in the program.

“Prudential has a solid record of sponsorship support to LGBT community organizations, including HRC. But we’re also committed to ensuring that the LGBT community’s unique long-term care needs and the various options available to them are understood,” said Eric Holtzman, vice president of Long-Term Care Insurance, Prudential, in a company press release. “The reality is the LGBT community lacks the traditional support that married heterosexuals enjoy and as a result face a greater need for long-term care insurance.”

Prudential says it worked closely with Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) to develop a training program designed to help financial professionals understand cultural sensitivities and unique challenges facing the gay and lesbian community. The company cited some interesting facts about the issues faced by GLBT seniors.

According to the 2006 National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute report entitled “Make Room for All: Diversity, Cultural Competency & Discrimination in an Aging America, nearly 90 percent of gay and lesbian seniors have no children to help them, while only 20 percent of heterosexual seniors are childless. The report also noted:

• Medicaid regulations protect the assets and homes of married spouses when the other spouse enters a nursing home or long-term care facility; no such protections are offered to same-sex partners:
• Social Security pays survivor benefits to widows and widowers, but not to the surviving same-sex life partner of someone who dies:
• Federal tax laws and other regulations of 401(k) s and pensions discriminate against same-sex partners, costing the surviving partner in a same-se relationship tens of thousands of dollars a year, and possibly over $1 million during the course of a lifetime:
• State tax laws, except in states that have legalized same-sex marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships also discriminate against same-sex couples.

Prudential boasts a long and active history of commitment to the gay and lesbian community through grants, sponsorships and domestic partnership benefits for employees of same-sex relationships. As one of the first corporate sponsors of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act legislation, Prudential was also a leader in offering domestic partnership benefits to employees of same-sex relationships. Since 2003, Prudential has received a 100 percent score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s annual Corporate Equality Index and also proudly supports organizations dedicated to improving the lives of gays and lesbians including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the Human Rights Campaign, and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

Prudential has been in the long-term care insurance business for over 20 years. Prudential Financial, a $631 billion company, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America serving over 50 million individual and institutional customers.