Life Insurance and Critical Illness Insurance – women may pay a penalty for having cancer in the family

by Michael Challiner

There has been a new development in the life industry, and although nothing is set in stone yet, it may be that as of next year, if you are female and have cancer in the family, you will either be paying more for life insurance or you could even be refused the cover outright. The insurance industry wants to have the right to ask women applicants whether they have been tested for BRCA1 or BRCA2, gene mutations that could point towards the future development of cancer. If you're a woman who has breast or ovarian cancer in the family, you may have already been tested for the gene mutation. You may also realise that the odds are by no means stacked – 10 of people newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 5 of people newly diagnosed with breast cancer are found to have the faulty gene. Around 1 in 850 women in the UK inherit the BRCA1 gene and if you are carrying the gene, then there is a 14-18 chance that you will, at some point, develop breast cancer. At the moment, the insurance industry is working towards getting approval from the Genetics and Insurance Committee, the body that will make the decision as to whether this is a viable option. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) is leading the proposal, and will be applying to the Genetics and Insurance Committee for authority to ask women whether they have received positive results for BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations over the course of the coming year. The Genetics and Insurance Committee have posted the following on their website: “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.” At the moment, the only illness that the life insurance industry is allowed to request the results of predictive tests for is Huntington's disease. There are tough rules relating to this issue too. They can only ask the question if cover of over £500,000 for life insurance, over £300,000 for critical illness or over £30,000 for payment protection insurance is required. That rule is set to expire in 2011, so until then the insurance industry will have to abide by it. We hope that a similar rule is applied to the breast cancer test if it approved, but there can be no guarantees. Harpal Karlcut, Chairman of the ABI's Genetics Working Party, was quoted in the trade insurance publication “Cover”, as stating: “We are looking to get approval for the breast cancer test by the end of the year.” He continued: “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 sincerely hope that the insurance industry does not receive open licence to penalise women with breast or ovarian cancer in the family. Watch this space for more information.

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