17:48-6oo Hospital service corporation to provide coverage regardless of gender identity, expression.

1. a. Notwithstanding any other law or regulation to the contrary, a hospital service corporation contract that provides hospital and medical expense benefits and is delivered, issued, executed, or renewed in this State pursuant to P.L.1938, c.366 (C.17:48-1 et seq.), or approved for issuance or renewal in this State, by the Commissioner of Banking and Insurance on or after the effective date of this act, shall not contain any provision that discriminates, and the hospital service corporation shall not discriminate, on the basis of a covered person's or prospective covered person's gender identity or expression or on the basis that the covered person or prospective covered person is a transgender person.

b. The discrimination prohibited by this section shall include:

(1) denying, cancelling, limiting or refusing to issue or renew a contract on the basis of a covered person's or prospective covered person's gender identity or expression, or for the reason that the covered person or prospective covered person is a transgender person;

(2) demanding or requiring a payment or premium that is based in whole or in part on a covered person's or prospective covered person's gender identity or expression, or for the reason that the covered person or prospective covered person is a transgender person;

(3) designating a covered person's or prospective covered person's gender identity or expression, or the fact that a covered person or prospective covered person is a transgender person, as a preexisting condition for which coverage will be denied or limited; or

(4) denying or limiting coverage, or denying a claim, for services including but not limited to the following, due to a covered person's gender identity or expression or for the reason that the covered person is a transgender person:

(a) health care services related to gender transition if coverage is available for those services under the contract when the services are not related to gender transition, including but not limited to hormone therapy, hysterectomy, mastectomy, and vocal training; or

(b) health care services that are ordinarily or exclusively available to individuals of one sex when the denial or limitation is due only to the fact that the covered person is enrolled as belonging to the other sex or has undergone, or is in the process of undergoing, gender transition.

c. For the purposes of this section:

"Gender expression" means a person's gender-related appearance and behavior, whether or not stereotypically associated with the person's assigned sex at birth.

"Gender identity" means a person's internal sense of their own gender, regardless of the sex the person was assigned at birth.

"Gender transition" means the process of changing a person's outward appearance, including physical sex characteristics, to accord with the person's actual gender identity.

"Transgender person" means a person who identifies as a gender different from the sex assigned to the person at birth.

d. The provisions of this section shall apply to all hospital service corporation contracts in which the hospital service corporation has reserved the right to change the premium.

e. Nothing in this section shall preclude the hospital service corporation from performing utilization review, including periodic review of the medical necessity of a particular service.

L.2017, c.176, s.1.