How Did We Start?

Emerald Life was over two years in the making. With its roots initially in ensuring equality for the LGBT community in insurance, we have grown since launch to deal with the similar problems of under-representation faced by women and non-traditional families – but still providing great insurance for everyone. We want to be known for our advocacy on issues affecting the communities that we support and our help with relevant charities and causes. We feel strongly about how we serve and work with these communites because we are part of those communities.

We have rewritten policies, taking out discriminatory and legacy wording, adding in extra protections and cover designed specifically for the groups that we aim to serve covering, for example, discrimination, surrogacy and single-parent families. On top of this, we have redefined the customer experience at our call centre so you don’t have to come out every time you call. In fact, we make no assumptions as to gender, sexuality or family structure.

We Listen

From the beginning, we wanted to have in place channels that will allow us to receive and to process feedback from our customers and potential customers, and to act on it. Emerald Life can only service the community if it listens and absorbs what it hears. To do this most effectively, we have put in place Emerald Connect, a bespoke social media platform that will allow us to share content and news about LGBT events globally. Just as importantly, it also allows input from our customers and our community, either directly or by comments on our content. We hope to engage the community in lively, frank, and constructive dialogue as we evolve.

Where there are areas of more specific focus, we have also set up specific feedback and input groups. We have established T-Squad, a group of trans advisers who between them have a long record of advocating trans matters to charities, governments, healthcare providers and policy advisors both here and abroad. Our Diverse Families page looks for input on all aspects of diverse parenting and we also work with our diverse family partners to increase understanding of specific needs.

Our Partners

We want to make sure that our efforts benefit the LGBT community beyond the support we give to our customers. Our charity partner relationships help us achieve that. We work with both large and small LGBT charities, supporting them in several ways, from mentoring those looking for employment, to hosting events, and from advising on social media planning, to running an intern program for LGBT young people referred from our charity partners.

Our Team

Emerald Life can only be a success – in terms of meeting the needs and wants of the LGBT community – if we can truly say that we have tried to listen, understand, and be skilled enough to make those improvements expressed by the experience of LGBT customers. You can find out more about our senior team, background, experience and why we are growing the first gay and lesbian insurance company in this section.

Our Board

Part of Emerald’s ability to grow and meet the community’s needs will depend on the abilities of the Emerald Life team. More than that, we felt it was important to have a strong group of advisers on the board. Our board has decades of top industry experience and also long-standing backgrounds working for LGBT equality, whether as part of the community or as strong allies. We are extremely proud to have such a talented and diverse team working with us, each one of them brings skills, experience and a deep understanding of what Emerald Life is trying to achieve.