Underwriting

Lest anyone think the previous exchange is fanciful or seems a bit paranoid, it is already happening. It is known as using accelerated underwriting using external data and over two dozen U.S. insurers are currently using it.

While it sounds like something Joe Friday of Dragnet or the FBI would do, medical surveillance involves the following of a condition before deciding whether or when to take a definitive action of treatment. The waiting period can precede a possible surgery, a medical intervention, or an institution of therapy that disrupts the status quo. That’s what surveillance truly is: Waiting and watching before deciding whether to take an action that will disrupt the status quo.
 

Genetic testing is becoming more accessible and commonplace, with new genetic links to diseases regularly being identified. However, the many constraints on the use of predictive genetic tests in insurance means that the easy availability of direct consumer testing is an issue that the industry must consider very carefully.

The pressure is on for carriers to provide the best customer experience, while implementing consistent, comprehensive and accurate underwriting policies.  Advanced e-underwriting systems can help insurers respond.

Earlier this year researchers at Heidelberg University Hospital announced the development of a blood test that can detect breast cancer cells in patients - with higher accuracy than mammography.

Epigenetics is poised to improve the underwriting process, moving beyond deep venous puncture blood collection and a lengthy approval process that takes months to complete.

There was a time in the very early days of life-insurance underwriting, somewhere actually in the 1700s, when the only useful and predictive piece of data recognized was age. And using it affected a simple equation: as the certainty of death approached year by year, so was risk duly assessed. It would take another two hundred years or so before we began to understand that gender also directly impacts the science of mortality. We now utilize a wealth of information to analyze and quantify risk, and yet, it appears, we may have still only scratched the surface. Today, we could be standing at the precipice of a quantum leap in how we understand, interpret and eventually underwrite an ever-expanding inventory of exposures.

Are cannabis, hemp and marijuana the same thing? What are THC and CBD? Are the medicinal benefits of cannabis true? What are the health risks? And as of now, is there enough data to assess the mortality impact?

Historically, insurance premiums were differentiated only by age, with gender (now removed in some markets) and smoking incorporated later. The introduction of a numerical rating system 100 years ago meant underwriters could immediately better differentiate medical risk. This allowed them to broaden their offers of cover beyond “only healthy individuals”, thereby realising the significant economic potential and much greater inclusion by extending cover to so-called substandard risks.