Company FAQs

FAQs About Emerald Life – Insuring Today's Diversity

Emerald Life provides insurance for all, but tailored insurance that ensures equailty of experience for the LGBT community, women and non-traditional families. You’ll find answers to questions you might have about the company here.

Emerald Life was launched in 2016; our mission was and is to be the UK’s first insurance company tailored for the wants and needs of the LGBT community. This later became insurance for all that ensured equality of experience for the LGBT community, women and non-traditional families.

Founders Steve Wardlaw, Chairman , and Heidi McCormack, CEO, worked two years developing the concept prior to launch. Steve had long been considering how the LGBT community was treated in the insurance, financial services, healthcare and retirement sectors – and from friends and family feedback decided that more needed to be done. LGBT customers simply weren’t being given equality of experience and often felt marginalised, with their needs going ignored. Heidi is a strong advocate of women’s issues and felt that there was an overlap with LGBT issues.

Emerald’s offering has been designed with the needs and wants of the LGBT community, women and non-traditional families at its heart – from our rewritten policies, to our call centre team, who’ve been specially trained in working with customers regardless of sexuality, gender or family structure. That means no awkward silences and no assumptions about sexuality for example.

Emerald Life is a privately-owned business, led by founders Steve Wardlaw and Heidi McCormack, with the backing of a small group of investors. As insurance brokers, we work with various insurers who underwrite the specially-tailored policy terms we offer our customers.

We are not just an insurance broker. A core set of values underpins everything we do. In a nutshell, our values are to deliver equality of experience to customers, to advocate the causes affecting the communities we serve (LGBT, women and non-traditional families) and develop long and trusting partnerships with our customers – whoever they may be – and to make sure that we deliver fair, transparent and competitive products for our customers

We genuinely want to help improve the lives of people in the LGBT community, as well as women and those in non-traditional family structures and we’ve already started doing this through the our partnerships. In addition to this, we’re focused on listening to our customers and the community, proactively integrating feedback and suggestions to improve our offering and services.

Our commitment to the whole LGBT community, as well as other underrepresented groups, means that before we offer a product or service, we want to truly understand the customers we’re offering it to.

For example, we offer tailored transgender products and services that we hope meet the needs of the trans community, although we keep this under review. This is why we’ve established ‘T Squad‘, our trans advisory group. They are helping us to understand the needs of the transgender community and research trans-inclusive polices.

One of the things insurance companies are most insensitive about is assuming that a new customer’s partner will be of the opposite sex. In the case of bisexuals, this situation can become even more awkward when a customer informs their insurer that their new partner is of a different gender to their previous one. Our call-centre staff have been specially-trained to provide non-invasive, respectful service to all our customers and won’t make assumptions.

What’s more, the extra protection we offer in our policies – like the legal expenses cover in our Home Insurance for discrimination based on sexuality – applies to bisexual customers too.

If there’s an aspect of cover that you think would benefit the bisexual community but is missing, please let us know by signing up to Emerald Connect. We’re proud to say that we listen to and act on feedback from our customers and the community.

If we proceed with your claim, and it’s covered in your policy, you’ll need to start collecting all the relevant documents, and write down the full details of what happened. If you want someone else to deal with the claim on your behalf (like a friend or relative if you’re out of the country), just let us know and we will deal with them if we can.

Yes we do. We provide great cover in all our policies and have added in features that cover the additional issues where certain groups in society may need additional assistance. That great cover also works for everyone. We expect allies are interested in our policies, not just because of the level of coverage, but also because they agree with our values of equality and inclusion and find us very competitively priced. We welcome comments and feedback from all our potential customers, regardless of sexuality, gender or family structure.

Yes. We currently offer insurance for home and contents, pets, term life, travel and weddings. We’re looking to expand our range soon, so watch this space for new products – you can also keep up-to-date with our news by signing up to Emerald Connect.

Yes, usually. The maximum amount you can claim for is set out in your policy schedule, or the policy itself. In general, there are limits on individual types of claim, as well as an overall limit.

Check out our team bios for more information on the people behind Emerald Life.

Times have changed since the days when the only way a gay man could get life insurance was not to be open about his sexuality – or when the notion of same-sex partnerships would confuse insurers. While this kind of discrimination is a lot less common, it still exists – often unknowingly on the part of the insurer, which may simply have not thought about customer care and respect issues that are specific to the LGBT community and do not therefore feature in the insurer’s customer journey.

For a start, LGBT customers often still find it awkward to deal with the questions and assumptions of insurance firms, which is where Emerald comes in. From our rewritten policies, to our online experience, to our specially-trained call-centre staff, we have the needs of gay and lesbian customers at the heart of everything we do – meaning getting insurance is as simple and convenient as it should be.

We feel there are five key areas in which we’re different:

Our policies are non-discriminatory

Our research and feedback has show that that, even today, there are still areas of discrimination like automatic exclusions of cover for HIV-related claims in some policies, or unfair pricing for single parents in travel policies. With Emerald, you can be sure that our policies are free from this kind of discrimination.

Our policies are tailored

Emerald provides equality of service for the LGBT community, women and non-traditional families – meaning you get peace of mind without paying over the odds. Our policies also have a number of specific covers including legal expense support to bring about a claim against a discriminatory supplier or a 24-hour helpline if you’re arrested or detained abroad because of your sexuality, or if you are a woman traveller who has been assaulted.

Our call-centre agents are specially trained

LGBT customers or those outside a nuclear family often face awkwardness and assumptions when speaking to insurance companies – whether it’s on the subject of sexuality or the gender of a partner, or the assumption that there isa  husband.

The staff in our main UK call centre are specially trained to know exactly how to work with customers from diverse backgrounds – and never assume, or ask prying questions. Click here to learn more about our systems.

Our business partners are just as committed as we are

The partners we work with to provide Emerald products and services – be they underwriters or our UK claims-handlers – have all received specific training from Emerald on diversity; they’re well-placed to offer the best customer journey possible to our consumers.

Our work doesn’t just stop at insurance

We take an active role in the communities we serve and have strong partnerships in place with some leading charities and organisations working for equality. Read how we’re working with them to positively impact the communities we serve here.

Thankfully, LGBT consumers are feeling increasingly empowered by the fact that issues relevant to them have become more mainstream. We believe that these customers are, quite rightly, now looking for a provider that gives them an offering tailored to their lifestyles. They’re no longer swayed by a big insurer including a pink triangle or rainbow flag in their advertising and are more and more coming to realise the importance of tailored financial, health and retirement planning.

Some of the same issues arise in many women’s experience of financial services, with assumptions that there is a male partner, or that a woman customer must be thinking of having children. This leads to awkward questioning, and a customer feeling that they are somehow in the wrong.

At Emerald, we hope we can meet the evolving needs of the our LGBT and women customers. If there is some area of cover you’d like to see which is missing from our offering, please let us know via Emerald Connect.

Yes indeed, but we always continue to learn more. We’re happy to have an extremely diverse team of staff and consultants, hired because of their talent experience, and understanding of Emerald’s values and our work with underserved and under-represented communities.

Our head office is in central London and our call-centre is also based in the UK. You can find out how to contact us here.

Just email us on customerservice@emeraldlife.co.uk or call us on 0330 113 7109.

To find out more about what makes us different, check out the Emerald Difference.

No. We don’t think any customers should have to pay any more or any less than any other customers to receive the same service levels – so you’ll find all our policies are extremely competitively priced for the excellent cover that we provide.

We’re committed to broadening our product range to better serve the needs of the communities we serve. When new products are available, we’ll be happy to let you know – just sign up to Emerald Connect to stay in the loop.

Emerald Life complies with all relevant customer data protection requirements and UK regulations concerning the sale of insurance to customers – and our staff undertake regular compliance training. We’ll never store your personal or financial data longer than necessary.

Please refer to our Privacy page or Cookies page for more information.

The best way to make a claim is to ring our call-centre using the relevant number from the list below. If possible, for our policies that are not Term Life, please try to call us within 24 hours of your need to make a claim.

•   Home and contents: 0330 041 2190

•   Term life: 0207 280 6000

•   Pet: 03332 205510

•   Wedding: 0330 041 2192

•   Travel: 0330 041 2191

Also, please note the following numbers for emergency medical treatment under an Emerald travel policy:

  • Inpatient treatment, anywhere in the world:

Global Response

Tel: +44 113 3180 197           
Fax: +44 113 3180 198

Email: operations@global-response.co.uk

  • Outpatient treatment, anywhere in the world, excluding North America and the United Kingdom:

Healthwatch S.A.

Tel: +44 113 3180 124           
Fax: +44 113 3180 125

Email: newcase@healthwatch.gr

  • Outpatient treatment, in North America and the United Kingdom:

Global Response

Tel: +44 (0) 113 3180 197     
Fax: +44 (0) 113 3180 198

Email: operations@global-response.co.uk

More information on claims can be found in our claims FAQs

We recognise the importance of service and set ourselves high standards. Should there be an occasion when we do not meet your expectations we are equally committed to dealing with any complaint in a thorough and professional manner.

Insurance other than EmeraldPet Insurance

If you wish to register a complaint about our home and contents policy, our travel policy, our wedding policy or our term life policy, request a copy of our complaints procedures in relation to these policies or give us feedback, please contact us:

In writing: Emerald Life Customer Relations, 286 Queensbridge Road, London E8 3NH.

By telephone: 0330 191 9960

By email: customerservice@emeraldlife.co.uk

If you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). You can find out more about this by visiting the FOS web site at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

If your complaint relates to insurance purchased from us via electronic means then you are also able to use the EC On-line Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform at www.ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/ who will notify FOS on your behalf.

You can request a copy of our procedures for dealing with complaints at any time. Details of the insurers’ complaints procedures can be found in each policy wording and Key Facts document.

EmeraldPet Insurance

In writing: EmeraldPet, FREEPOST PetAdmin

By telephone: 03332 205510

By email: claims@petadminteam.com or policy@petadminteam.com

 

The best way to get your question answered quickly is to email email us at customerservice@emeraldlife.co.uk or call us on 0330 113 7109. Before you get in touch, it’s worth checking to see if you can find the answer in our comprehensive FAQs.