Published Date: 10/26/2006

In August, ING had just learned it scored a perfect 100 in the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) 2006 Corporate Equality Index (CEI). The HRC is America’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) civil rights organization, and the CEI is a tool to measure how equitably companies are treating their GLBT employees, consumers and investors. Print media circulation of the CEI has been extended to more than 10 million readers.

The HRC recently released its fullreport showing that a record number of the largest U.S. companies are increasingly competing to expand benefits and protections for their GLBT employees and consumers. This year’s report showed an unprecedented 138 major U.S. companies earned the top rating of 100 percent.

Within the insurance industry, top companies scoring 100 included MetLife, Prudential, Nationwide, Chubb and CNA. Within the banking and financial services industry, top companies scoring 100 included Citicorp, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.

A copy of the report and all ratings can be found at www.hrc.org/cei.