Underwriting

Indirect use of discrimination factors that are outlawed is inexcusable and needs to be avoided by due diligence by insurer and indeed the firm supplying the data. Any decent carrier would not want to cross those red lines anyway – and that is even if the data company involved is not itself subject to regulatory oversight and/or consumer protection laws. Moral: act with integrity and choose your business partners carefully.

Slides for the presentation at ReFocus 2019, March 10-13, Las Vegas

In this age of amazing medical advances, it seems as though anything broken can be fixed.  In my native South Africa, the surgeon Dr. Christiaan Barnard proved that even defective hearts can be replaced when he performed the first heart transplant in 1967.

Rapid medical advances, as well as growing volumes of health and mortality data, are transforming cancer risk assessment. RGA's Neil Parkin explores our deepening understanding and insurance implications.  

Urine drug testing is a cornerstone of the overall testing in proposed insureds and yields a lot of valuable underwriting information. So how long do a lot of drugs stay in the system and at what time frame would they be likely to trigger a positive test?

The life industry finds itself at an inflection point as insurers come under growing pressure to position themselves to embrace genomics and genetic testing. Best's Review explores the underwriting implications of rapid advances in genomics, including research by RGA and King’s College London into the risk prediction potential of polygenic risk scores for incidence and death from breast cancer and coronary artery disease.

Rates of diabetes, heart disease, respiratory disorders, certain cancers and other non-communicable diseases are increasing globally, and a growing body of evidence links lifestyle behaviors, such as physical inactivity, poor nutrition and smoking, to the increase.

As the use of algorithms and public data to inform insurance premiums becomes more common, we’ll need to decide what is and isn’t okay

Multiple endocrine neoplasias are inherited disorders that include a variety of combinations of endocrine and nonendocrine tumors and affect different endocrine glands.  The diseases run in families enough so that genetic counseling is advised when any first degree relative is affected.