‘Genetics is not the issue’: Insurers on genetics and life insurance

Abstract

This article offers an analysis of the way private insurers deal with the issue of genetics and insurance. Drawing on specific written insurance sources, a reconstruction is made of internal debates on genetics and insurance within the private insurance world in Europe and the United States. The article starts by analyzing the way insurers initially framed the issue of genetics. It proceeds by showing how ideas with respect to this issue developed beyond public policy debates in the nineties. Although not a strictly linear development, a trend towards a change in perspective can be demonstrated: at the beginning most insurance companies took another stance than they do nowadays. The article concludes by questioning the effect of these changes within the insurance world for the definition of the problem with respect to genetics and insurance. Does taking into account the public concerns around genetics also include taking genetics as a public problem?

Genetic discrimination in private insurance: global perspectives

“…Authors have expressed concern that health and life insurers could discriminate based on genetic test results, impose higher premiums or deny coverage to those they consider a high risk (Morrison 2005, Hudson et al 2008. Though only limited reliable empirical evidence is available on its prevalence, the fear of genetic discrimination in private insurance alone has attracted a considerable amount of attention in the academic and political realms (Rothstein 2005, Van Hoyweghen et al 2005, Mittra 2006). Vol.…”

Genetics and insurance in the United Kingdom 1995–2010: the rise and fall of “scientific” discrimination

“…As noted by van Hoyweghen et al (2005), for some years the insurance industry appeared to assume that a public relations campaign could persuade policymakers that insurers should be allowed to use genetic test results. It was suggested that those who argued against genetic discrimination in insurance on ethical or social grounds were misunderstanding or disregarding the arithmetical facts of insurance.…”

“…Van Hoyweghen et al (2005) notes that after initially viewing genetics as a problem of public misunderstanding which could be solved by "education," insurers' second approach was to claim that science could justify genetic discrimination. These claims were very prevalent around the millennium, and for some years they appear to have been accepted by the UK government and others; the establishment of GAIC was predicated on this model of "scientific" discrimination.…”

“…Several previous authors in this journal have examined insurers' and policymakers' responses to the issue of genetics and insurance. Van Hoyweghen et al (2005) characterize insurers' response as passing through three phases: first treating the issue as a public relations problem; then an appeal to science as a bulwark against regulation; and finally an acceptance that science did not provide robust justification for insurers' ideological preference for implementing any technically feasible discrimination, and that politically negotiated solutions between that preference and wider social preferences were unavoidable. Van Hoyweghen and Horstman (2009) record the efforts of global reinsurers to develop an evidence base to provide better justifications for recommendations in the rating manuals which they provide to direct insurers.…”

Genetic ‘Risk Carriers’ and Lifestyle ‘Risk Takers’. Which Risks Deserve our Legal Protection in Insurance?

“…A thorough description of the legislation itself can be found elsewhere, see e.g. [26,28,30,35,47]. To summarize here, currently most European countries have passed some form of genetic discrimination law since 1990 while in the US most states have enacted laws dealing with "genetic" discrimination, "genetic" privacy and "genetic testing" in health or life insurance.…”