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Life Insurance And Critical Illness Insurance. Cancer Tests To Increase Women's Premiums
By: Michael Challiner
Ladies, if your mother or any other female blood-line relatives have a history
of breast or ovarian cancer then from next year onwards, you could face higher
insurance premiums. You could even be refused cover altogether.
When these women apply for life and critical illness cover, the insurance
industry wants to ask them whether they have been tested for the gene mutations
BRCA1 or BRCA2. These are the gene complications that increase the chances of
them developing these cancers. But before the insurance companies can ask these
questions on their application forms, they must get approval from the Genetics
and Insurance Committee, the body that advises the Government on these and
similar issues.
In the coming months the Association of British Insurers (ABI) will be
requesting the Committee for authority to ask women whether they have been
tested positive for BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations. These are the mutations that
are present in 1 in 10 of newly diagnosed cases of ovarian cancer and 1 in 20 of
new cases of breast cancer. Approximately 1 in 850 women in Britain inherit a
faulty BRCA1 gene and of those, 14 – 18% will develop breast cancer during in
their lives.
On the web site for the Genetics and Insurance Committee we found a notice
saying, ” The Committee expects that the Association of British Insurers will
submit in late 2006/2007 four revised and updated applications for the use of
adverse results from the predictive genetic tests of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes
(breast/ovarian cancer) in helping to determine insurance premiums for life and
critical illness insurance”.
So far, application forms issued by British insurance companies are only allowed
to ask for the results of predictive tests for Huntington's disease. Even then,
the question can only be asked when the application is for more than £500,000 of
life insurance cover or mote than £300,000 for critical illness insurance or
over £30,000 for payment protection insurance. This rule is set under an
agreement entered into by the insurance industry which is due to expire in 2011
but the Chairman of the ABI's Genetics Working Party, Harpal Karlcut, is
reported in the trade insurance magazine “Cover”, as saying: -
“We are looking to get approval for the breast cancer test by the end of the
year”, adding, “The two breast cancers are the next conditions that we will look
at but after that we don't see the need to look at other conditions. We do keep
an eye out for what diseases may come up in the future but there is nothing else
on the horizon”. We add another important rider – yet!
About the Author:
Express specialise in life insurance quotations but also offer both critical illness cover and life assurance policies. |
