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0 pointsiamben11y ago0 comments

Just from (UK) insurer Aviva's health insurance policy:

"We don’t cover treatment of pre-existing conditions or related conditions if you had symptoms of, medication for, treatment for or advice about that condition in the five years before your joining date."

It wouldn't take much for companies to start requiring that you disclose the knowledge you're at (high?) risk of something and adjusting their prices accordingly - particularly in long term policies.

Edit: I probably should have said life insurance. Health insurance isn't (entirely) necessary in the UK thanks to the NHS. But imagine the premiums on a life insurance policy if they knew you had a high certainty of something difficult or incurable?

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jebus98911y ago

> It wouldn't take much for companies to start requiring that you disclose the knowledge you're at (high?) risk of something and adjusting their prices accordingly - particularly in long term policies.

That's what insurance is though, right? You pay a premium over time relative to their payout risk. If you have heightened risk of serious disease you're not entitled to the same premium as someone with considerably lower risk.

Regardless, other than a couple of exceptions the genetics of complex diseases wouldn't be of much interest to health insurers. A SNP with a tiny effect size associated with type 2 diabetes gives less risk information than taking a look at a person's waistline.

talkingquickly11y ago

Often (in the UK at least) if your insurance is provided as a benefit through a company rather than buying your policy directly, pre existing conditions will be covered even though the provider would normally exclude them if purchased by an individual.

Ntrails11y ago

Typically this is because they are able to make decent generalisations about the total risk pool they are insuring.

Offering 100 policies at £100 makes sense if you can make a decent estimate of the average annual payout being £90. The fact that one guy walks in to the policy knowing he'll cost £500 doesn't concern you.

Offering 1 policy at £100 without any exclusions means that you get adverse selection - a unusually high proportion of your clients would walk in knowing that they'll cost the £500.

In many countries where health insurance is obligatory, regulators have risk pooling between insurers to help negate selection effects (I think this was included in ObamaCare provision but not sure)

ctz11y ago

This observation likely explains my experience!

aroch11y ago

23andME technically offer no medical advice, but I wouldn't be surprised if insurers don't care about that technicality

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