Life Insurance - What Price Privacy?

Summary: There was a time when people were entitled to their privacy, unless they had committed a criminal offence. Sadly those days are long gone and most unlikely to return. It may have started with the Government authorising the taxman to enter your home, and denying you any right of refusal. It seems to have developed from that point, giving a free hand to almost anyone who could put forward a good case for intruding into your affairs. Private companies have not been slow to ge...

There was a time when people were entitled to their privacy, unless they had committed a criminal offence. Sadly those days are long gone and most unlikely to return. It may have started with the Government authorising the taxman to enter your home, and denying you any right of refusal. It seems to have developed from that point, giving a free hand to almost anyone who could put forward a good case for intruding into your affairs. Private companies have not been slow to get in on the act, and the number of individuals who now have a right to investigate your private life has grown to alarming proportions. It is doubtful if any individual could 'off the cuff' give you a comprehensive list of those who are given this dispensation. The latest intrusion relates to life insurance companies and women who have had breast or ovarian cancer in their family and hope to take out a life policy. BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are faulty genes which are adjudged to be responsible for 10% of the ovarian cancers and 5% of the breast cancers which each year are diagnosed in Britain. In connection with this most distressing and private of situations, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) is intending to submit an application for its members to be permitted to question women regarding testing for these mutations. If the government's advisors, the Genetics and Insurance Committee give their approval, women applying for a life policy will have to say whether they have been tested and if so they will be required to divulge the outcome. Admission of a positive result would be likely to force up premiums or may even be used as a reason for a refusal of cover. Several European countries have banned this most intrusive of questions and the results of genetic tests in those countries are not permitted as a reason for increasing insurance premiums. Strange to relate Britain has a similar voluntary agreement which last year was extended to 2011. This banned questions about genetic testing for anything except Huntingtons Disease (due to its development being free from environmental effects), and even in that case specific limits have been applied. These are based on the value of the proposed policy and are set at quite high minimum values i.e.