KAREN VIBERT-KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette State Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, talks about the governor's proposed budget during a meeting with the Sun-Gazette's Editorial board in Williamsport.

An insurance glitch exists for Army and Air National Guard members throughout Pennsylvania making them ineligible for life insurance coverage in certain locations.

House Bill 412 is legislation written by state Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, representing the 84th House district of Lycoming County and part of Sullivan County, that he said should be passed into law but added that it is being held up because of partisan politics.

It simply says no matter where our Army or Air National Guard from Pennsylvania that their life insurance will cover them, he said.

Currently, there is a lapse in the law that says if they serve overseas in a combat zone their life insurance will cover them. It says that if they serve in Pennsylvania, in active duty during an emergency or are mobilized and activated in-state, that they will be covered by life insurance.

However, it does not pertain to whether they are sent to another U.S. state or U.S. territory, such as Puerto Rico, Hamm said.

Hamm used the Puerto Rico example, because the island was crushed by a hurricane.

“Members of our Guard were sent down there to help,” Hamm said. “If one of them would have lost their lives while there there would have been questions of whether or not their life insurance would have covered them.”

“The reality is we shouldn’t leave that to question,” he said.

The bill would ensure that their life insurance covers them no matter where they are, he added.

Hamm is passionate about the legislation because it is about the men and women who are putting on the uniform to serve and defend the nation.

“Those men and women, we should have the utmost respect for,” he said. “We should be doing everything we can to serve them, to make their lives a little easier, to make their families’ lives a little easier.”

“If they lose their lives while serving, we want to make sure their loved ones receive that life insurance, and give them the proper respects that they are due,” he said.