The Nation - News from Oct. 7, 1985

An insurance company has suggested that underwriters try to screen possible AIDS victims by examining applicants’ life styles, prompting a gay activist to warn that unmarried heterosexual men may be unjustly denied coverage. Lincoln National Life Insurance Co. of Fort Wayne, Ind., suggested in a memo to health and life insurance underwriters that they use marital status as an indicator of possible homosexuality, the Dallas Times Herald said. A Lincoln National spokesman confirmed the suggestions. The memo said that age and residence also could be used to screen single and divorced men between the ages of 20 and 49.