Cameron Huddleston is an award-winning journalist with nearly 20 years of experience writing about personal finance. She also is the author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances. F.
Cameron Huddleston ContributorCameron Huddleston is an award-winning journalist with nearly 20 years of experience writing about personal finance. She also is the author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances. F.
Written By Cameron Huddleston ContributorCameron Huddleston is an award-winning journalist with nearly 20 years of experience writing about personal finance. She also is the author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances. F.
Cameron Huddleston ContributorCameron Huddleston is an award-winning journalist with nearly 20 years of experience writing about personal finance. She also is the author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances. F.
Contributor Jason Metz Lead Editor, InsuranceAs a former claims handler and fraud investigator, Jason Metz has worked on a multitude of complex and multifaceted claims. The insurance industry can be seemingly opaque, and Jason enjoys breaking down confusing terms and products to help others mak.
Jason Metz Lead Editor, InsuranceAs a former claims handler and fraud investigator, Jason Metz has worked on a multitude of complex and multifaceted claims. The insurance industry can be seemingly opaque, and Jason enjoys breaking down confusing terms and products to help others mak.
Jason Metz Lead Editor, InsuranceAs a former claims handler and fraud investigator, Jason Metz has worked on a multitude of complex and multifaceted claims. The insurance industry can be seemingly opaque, and Jason enjoys breaking down confusing terms and products to help others mak.
Jason Metz Lead Editor, InsuranceAs a former claims handler and fraud investigator, Jason Metz has worked on a multitude of complex and multifaceted claims. The insurance industry can be seemingly opaque, and Jason enjoys breaking down confusing terms and products to help others mak.
| Lead Editor, Insurance
Updated: Oct 28, 2022, 10:53am
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When you apply for a life insurance policy, the insurance company will gather a lot of information about you, such as your age, gender and health. Most importantly, the insurer will gather plenty of details about your health and the prescription drugs you take.
But does taking an at-home DNA test such as one from 23andMe or Ancestry could hurt your chances of getting life insurance?
Life insurance companies don’t consider at-home tests to be reliable, including DNA ancestry tests. “Those things have nothing to do with mortality or your health,” says Dr. Robert Gleeson, a former medical consultant for the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI). “We don’t know the reliability of that information or the accuracy of the test,” adds Gleeson.
According to the ACLI, if an insurer asks about genetic tests on a life insurance application, it would only be interested in an at-home test if your results included a recommendation that you contact your doctor about a particular result. And even then, an insurer would want the result confirmed through a doctor-ordered genetic test.
In some instances, genetic results can actually work in your favor. Your life insurance company will ask about your family’s medical history on the application for coverage. If you report on your application that your mom had breast cancer before the age of 50, your “mortality risk” would be considered higher. But if you took a genetic test and the markers for breast cancer were negative, your family history would be forgiven, Gleeson says. If the test were positive, you’d be no worse off in the eyes of the insurer than without the test, simply due to your family’s medical history.
If you already have a life insurance policy, the results of any genetic tests you take won’t affect your existing coverage. This means your insurer can’t drop you if you take a test that shows, say, you’re predisposed to a certain type of cancer.
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) of 2008 prohibits health insurance companies from using genetic information to make coverage or rate decisions. However, GINA protections do not extend to life insurance, disability insurance or long-term care insurance. So there is no federal law that limits the use of genetic information by life insurance companies.
Legislation has been proposed in several states, but Florida is the only state that has enacted a genetic privacy law that prohibits life insurance companies from canceling, limiting or denying coverage and from setting different premium rates based on genetic information.
In California, SB 41 enacts the Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA), which prohibits direct-to-consumer companies from disclosing your genetic information to any company responsible for administering disability insurance, health insurance, life insurance and long-term care insurance.
Consumer privacy advocates argue that there need to be more regulations to limit the use of genetic information by insurance companies in order to protect privacy and prevent discrimination.
“There’s probably nothing more personal than your genetic information,” says Susan Grant, director of consumer protection and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America. “Of all the kinds of sensitive data there may be about people, that’s right up at the top of the list.”
The insurance industry, on the other hand, claims that consumers benefit when insurers have this information.
“Many people are afraid that life insurers want to use genetic tests to rate or decline applicants,” says Gleeson. “That’s the furthest thing from the truth. Life insurers want to sell as much life insurance to as many people as possible at as low of a rate as possible.”
At-home genetic tests put life insurers at a disadvantage when pricing policies: Consumers who suspect from an at-home genetic test that they are predisposed to illness might be more apt to buy life insurance without disclosing the genetic information to the insurance company.
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The type of genetic tests available can vary depending on why you need or want the genetic test in the first place.
For example, a genetic test ordered by a medical provider (such as your physician) can be used as a diagnostic tool for certain types of health conditions, such as cancer or epilepsy. A direct-to-consumer genetic test might be used to give clues to your ancestry or kinship to another person.
Here are some examples of types of genetic testing that may be ordered by your doctor:
Direct-to-consumer genetic tests are often performed at home and you’ll send your sample to the genetic testing company to get your results. Here are some common types of direct-to-consumer genetic tests:
A 2018 study published in Genetics in Medicine found that 40% of gene variants identified by direct-to-consumer kits were false positives. And some genetic variants that were called “increased risk” by the DNA companies were classified as benign and common by clinical labs.
The type of genetic tests that insurers are interested in are those ordered by medical providers. Typically, genetic testing is done by doctors only when a patient has a family history of a disease or as a diagnostic tool, not just because someone wants to find out if he or she is predisposed to certain conditions, Gleeson says.
The results of such tests would be included in a patient’s medical records. Any information in your medical records is accessible by insurance companies when you apply for a policy and grant them access to your records.
Don’t let fears about the impact that genetic tests might have on your ability to get life insurance prevent you from taking necessary tests. If your doctor thinks it’s important for you to be tested to understand your risk, have the test done so you can get the proper care, Gleeson says.
If you’re considering buying life insurance and you’re also thinking about doing an at-home genetic test from a direct-to-consumer provider such as 23andMe, apply for and buy life insurance coverage first. There’s no need to raise red flags if you don’t have a negative family medical history.
If you do have positive test results from a doctor-ordered test and are shopping for life insurance, work with a knowledgeable life insurance agent who will know which insurers are best for your application.
“Different companies have different ways of looking at risk,” Gleeson says.
As part of the life insurance application process, you are expected to answer truthfully. Failure to disclose a medical condition could lead to the denial of a life insurance claim. But life insurance applications typically do not ask about genetic tests.
If you previously had a genetic test that was ordered by a doctor, your life insurance company will see it if they review your medical records during the application process.
Life insurance companies would only be interested in the results of an at-home genetic test if they include a recommendation that you contact your doctor, according to Gleeson. And even then, they would likely want to confirm any potential health issues with a doctor-ordered genetic test.
In certain states, an insurance company cannot obtain your direct-to-consumer genetic test results from the genetic testing company without your permission. For example, in Illinois and South Dakota, a direct-to-consumer commercial genetic testing company cannot share your genetic test information with a life insurance company without your written consent.
No-exam life insurance is a life insurance policy that does not require a life insurance medical exam as part of the application process.
A typical life insurance medical exam includes a series of questions related to your health and medical history, as well as an appointment with a paramedical professional who will record information such as your blood pressure, height and weight. You may be asked to provide blood and urine specimens for testing. Depending on your age and health, you may need to do additional testing such as an electrocardiogram (EKG).
For some types of no-exam life insurance, the insurer will still review your medical records and could discover a past genetic test. For example, “accelerated underwriting” policies can deliver a quick approval without a medical exam, but the insurer could still gather information about you from a variety of sources. Accelerated underwriting life insurance can be a solid choice for young and healthy applicants and can be priced well.
Other types of life insurance do not use much, if any, medical information:
If you have health conditions, work with an experienced, independent life insurance agent. A good agent can identify the companies most likely to accept you, and will know who offers no-exam policies that are priced well.
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