Genetic information and life insurance: A proposal for an ethical European policy

Per Sandberg

Social Science & Medicine, 1995, vol. 40, issue 11, 1549-1559

Abstract: Developments in molecular biology will enable development of tests for genetic predisposition to multifactorial diseases. People identified with increased risk might be able to prevent or delay the onset of illness by medical treatment and/or changing their environmental exposure. But tests might also help organizations, such as employers, insurers, and government bodies, to minimize their future economic risks. This article searches for an ethical and feasible European policy for the use of genetic information in life insurance. It first argues that genetic information is not so relevantly different from at least one other kind of medical information, that of HIV infection, that it justifies unlike policy treatment. European life insurance is then claimed to be a non-primary social good which should be handled by the private market. The problem of adverse selection is argued to be a reasonably serious threat. Insurers should therefore be allowed to demand some genetic risk information in order to secure the sustainability of insurance schemes. However, the moral principles and values of autonomy, privacy, non-discrimination, non-deterrence, solidarity and confidentiality, put limits on insurers justified information demands. The article ends up advocating a regime of limited community-rated private life insurance, first proposed by a Dutch committee. It stipulates that insurers should be forbidden to demand genetic tests as a condition for an insurance contract, but be allowed to ask for existing genetic information when the sought insurance cover is above a certain limit.

Keywords: genetic; information; life; insurance; European; policy; ethics; genetic; predisposition; tests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1995
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(95)00023-Z
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:40:y:1995:i:11:p:1549-1559

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().