Ivan Massow bids to take advantage of 'mad pound'

August 16, 2003

Entrepreneur Ivan Massow, who first saw the potential of the gay pound, is backing a bid to take advantage of what has been called the 'mad pound'.

The company which he heads, the Ivan Massow Group, is to ally with campaigners who want to end alleged widespread discrimination by financial service providers towards people with mental health problems.

Campaigners say such services routinely turn down applications by people who disclose mental health diagnoses, such as depression and schizophrenia.

Ivan Massow, who first sold insurance specifically to gay people turned down by mainstream firms over concerns of HIV and Aids, is putting his company's commercial muscle behind an internet venture aiming to persuade insurance firms, mortgage lenders, banks and building societies to provide products for people with mental health problems.

Alistair Gledhill, operations manager with the Ivan Massow Group, has confirmed the brokers will be discussing with financial service providers how to provide a range of tailor-made services, particularly life insurance, for people with mental health problems.

Ivan Massow is former chairman of MIND's enquiry into mental health and social exclusion - and this latest enterprise by his company follows an approach from internet site Loonscape.com which is collating case studies of alleged discrimination by financial service providers.

These case studies are to be submitted to the government's social exclusion unit, presently consulting mental health groups on how to improve opportunities for people diagnosed with a mental illness.

Vyvyan Kinross, of Loonscape.com, said: "One in four of us will have a mental health problem at some point of our lives.

"Not everyone with mental health problems is on benefits. If people with mental health problems can start working together, they can start expressing some consumer power.

"There is an awful lot of purchasing power there - what we are calling the mad pound."

Kinross, former chair of mental health group the Hamlet Trust, said the inspiration for Loonscape.com came from the gay pound phenomenon, and Ivan Massow himself.

Loonscape.com, part of Paddington Publishing Ltd co-founded by psychologist and author Dr Peter Barham, says people who disclose mental health problems have applications for various financial services regularly rejected.

With the Ivan Massow Group's backing it will be urging financial service providers to learn from the lead set by the Manic Depressive Fellowship which negotiated with a travel and life insurance broker to provide affordable premiums for its 5,000 members. Premiums had previously been too expensive.

Kinross said: "Banks, building societies and insurers divide the world into lemons at the top and plums at the bottom. People with mental health problems have been the plums.

"Declaring a mental health diagnosis can leave you open to exclusion from services - and this exclusion is one of the main reasons why people with mental health problems are marginalised. Discrimination can often be subtle and insidious."

Development manager for the Manic Depressive Fellowship Mike Calver, who liaised with brokers to arrange the insurance scheme for his charity's members said it was important insurance firms understood that many diagnosed with a mental illness were not high risk clients.

He said: "The kind of question you have to ask travel insurers, for example, is who is the highest risk - a 17-year-old on holiday with his mates and who goes out boozing and then dangerously climbing walls, or a someone with a mental health problem who responsibly manages their illness and medication? It might be that the 17-year-old is of higher risk."

The experience of psychologist Rachel Perkins, who has been diagnosed with manic depression, is one of the examples Loonscape is to hand over to the social exclusion unit.

After a pay rise five years ago, she applied to increase her payments to her health insurers, Abbey Life. But when she declared her spells in psychiatric hospital, the firm refused.

Perkins, a member of the Disability Rights Commission's mental Health Action Group, then wrote to Abbey Life detailing how she intended to pursue a case of discrimination under the Disability Discrimination Act.

After a two year battle, Abbey Life granted Perkins her increased cover.

"I am delighted Abbey Life changed their mind," says Perkins.

"But at the time I was very angry."

"Under the disability discrimination act, insurers are required to treat disabled people no differently than anyone else. The act requires them to make reasonable adjustments. This just does not happen."

See:
Loonscape.com
Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health's response to the social exclusion unit consultation (pdf)

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