Insurance Companies Are Essential: States

Health Insurers' View

America's Health insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association have come together to make a similar plea on behalf of health insurers, and on behalf of all of the workers and vendors that help manage health plans.

In Department of Homeland Security guidance, "health plan workers are clearly included  as essential critical workers," the groups have written in a letter sent to the National Governors Association. "Health insurance providers must be able to continue to provide many key functions."

Those functions include managing telehealth systems as well as paying hospitals, physicians and other health care professionals, the groups write.

"Doctors and hospitals are under enormous financial stress right now and depend on our ability to maintain the flow of timely payments," the groups write. "It is vitally important that our key service personnel and vendors can continue to service and provide information to consumers about their health insurance coverage at this challenging time.

California

In California, officials are "ordering all individuals living in the state of California to stay home or at their place of residence, except as needed to maintain continuity of operation of the federal critical infrastructure sectors."

The California essential workers list includes "insurance companies" in the sector profile under the "Financial Services" heading.

The list describes the following types of workers as being exempt from stay-at-home requirements:

• Workers who are needed to process and maintain systems for processing financial transactions and services (e.g., payment, clearing, and settlement; wholesale funding; insurance services; and capital markets activities).
• Workers who are needed to provide consumer access to banking and lending services, including ATMs, and to move currency and payments (e.g., armored cash carriers).
• Workers who support financial operations, such as those staffing data and security operations centers.

Illinois

Pritzker's stay-at-home order "prohibits things like visiting other people's homes (except to provide care or supplies) and gatherings of more than 10 people and closes all nonessential establishments, including most retail, recreation and entertainment businesses," officials say on the website presenting the order.

Illinois classifies "financial institutions" as essential, but it does not explicitly include insurance or insurers under that heading.

Instead, Illinois provides an exemption for "professional services" businesses, including "legal services, accounting services, insurance services, real estate services (including appraisal and title services).

Illinois also provides an exemption for the administrators of labor unions' health and welfare funds.

New York State

In New York, Cuomo has issued an order closing most in-office operations of non-essential businesses, as of 8 p.m. March 22.

The order does not apply to the in-person operations of "essential businesses or entities, including any for profit or non-profit, regardless of the nature of the service, the function they perform, or its corporate or entity structure."

Guidance lists "financial institutions" as essential.

The types of financial institutions classified as essential are banks, payroll services, accounting firms, financial markets support firms, and insurance organizations.

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