YOUR life insurance company doesn鈥檛 care how much you think your life is worth, so long as you are prepared to pay a premium that covers your chosen sum. Instead, insurers are concerned with how likely it is that you will die before the end of your policy, because that determines whether they have to pay out.
Despite actuarial science remaining something of an art at the moment, the number of data points insurers can use to measure our likelihood of an early death is growing exponentially. As well as our family history of illness, whether or not we smoke and the number of units of alcohol we drink a week, insurers can also factor in the number of hours we sleep, how regularly we visit the gym and even, potentially, our browsing habits and social media profiles. But one source of information remains off-limits: our genetic predisposition to certain health conditions.
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In the UK, there is a , the Code on Genetic Testing and Insurance, renewed every three years. Health insurers in the US are also barred from using genetic information to calculate risk, but there is no , although they have yet to do this in practice.
Genetic testing 鈥� out of medical necessity or genealogical curiosity 鈥� is becoming routine. Millions of us have already sent our DNA off to be analysed by genome sequencing companies. In doing so, we might reveal the genetic health predispositions of our siblings and children, as well as our own risks. It is an enormous, untapped reservoir of data.
To date, the insurance industry appears to accept that DNA can鈥檛 reliably predict our medical future. When it comes to health, our genes are more of a weather forecast than an architect鈥檚 blueprint: they might reveal a predisposition to certain conditions, but they can鈥檛 say with certainty whether a person will develop a specific health problem in their lifetime. Except in the case of a few serious illnesses, having the genes for a deadly condition isn鈥檛 a death sentence. It would be wrong for people with 鈥渂ad鈥� genes to be excluded from cover or forced to pay higher premiums, simply on the basis of having them. After all, while we can choose how much we drink and sleep, we can鈥檛 change our genes.
But in the age of artificial intelligence and big data, will insurers continue to be happy to ignore data points that may make their estimates more accurate? It is easy to imagine a day when a vial of blood or a drop of saliva is as necessary a part of qualifying for an insurance policy as filling in those endless questionnaires.
If and when that day arrives, what rights would we have to the genetic data insurance companies hold on us? Would they be under any obligation to tell us what they had discovered in our DNA that informed their decision? Would we want to know?
Now that an increasing number of financial decisions are made by algorithms that scrape all possible sources of information about an individual, I am concerned by the risks associated with adding genes into the mix. If my brother鈥檚 genetic test comes back showing a predisposition to Alzheimer鈥檚, I wouldn鈥檛 want that to preclude me from getting cover. Additionally, I want the right to know nothing about what my genes indicate about my future health.
The UK鈥檚 moratorium on genetic testing for insurance is next due to be reviewed in 2025. Whether our genes enter into the equation depends on how reliable those genetic forecasts become, and how willing we might be to surrender our DNA in exchange for lower premiums. My hope is that government, industry and customers would prefer insurance cover to remain something of an art, rather than a precise science.
Jenny Kleeman is author of
