Genetics and insurance: an actuarial perspective with a difference

This paper is based on a submission which I made to a public consultation by the Human Genetics Commission in the United Kingdom in 2001. Many individuals organisations. Many individuals or organisations capable of commenting technically on insurance discrimination have a commercial interest in promoting such discrimination. Technical expertise is therefore directed to the promotion of discrimination for commercial ends, but little technical expertise is applied to counteract it. This paper to the Human Genetics Commission attempts to redress the balance. Its central section comprises a point-by-point rebuttal of some of the myths and half-truths which are promulgated by those wishing to legitimise insurers' access to genetic test results.