Rx profiles

The risk implications of failure to take medication as prescribed are not widely-appreciated by underwriters. To address this issue, Hank wrote a comprehensive paper on insurability issues related to nonadherence. This unique research paper was funded by Milliman Intelliscript.

In February, this underwriter addressed the core concept behind the odd equation Rx = Dx (pharmaceutical information and twenty-first century underwriting) and, in so doing, posited that pharmaceutical information could be effectively employed to facilitate the underwriting process.

Facilitate is a broad term.

How might knowing the exact medication a proposed insured is taking (whether prescribed or purchased over the counter) allow an underwriter to realize his twenty-first century mandate (to speed up the risk selection process) while, at the same time, not forsaking his accountability for mortality results?

At the October 2001 conference of the Institute of Home Office Underwriters (IHOU) in Los Angeles, this underwriter presented a lecture titled, simple, “Rx = Dx.”

Fortunately, its subtitle—”Pharmaceutical Information and Twenty-First Century Underwriting”—was a tad more illuminating, and the result (thankfully) was a large audience.

The narrative translation of the curious equation might best be stated as “tell me what he’s taking and I’ll tell you what he’s got.”