3 ms·

Court..? AFAIK insurance companies in the US are free to model and quote you as they wish with the information they can legally get

mbreese 7y ago
Actually, they are expressly prohibited from using your genetic information to make decisions about your coverage. It's the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) [1], where: > ... health insurers may not use genetic information to make eligibility, coverage, underwriting or premium-setting decisions. However, it doesn't apply to all insurance: > It does not cover long-term care insurance, life insurance, or disability insurance. [1] https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/policy-issues/Genetic-Discrimination https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/policy-issues/Genetic-...
- rurp 7y ago
  This is good, but also leads to the obvious follow up question of how stringently it has and will be enforced. It's also illegal to lose PII and credit info for millions of people but, well, here we are.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Also, parallel construction. Also, data laundering - you drop DNA test data into a business analytics third party, and two data brokers later this arrives at your insurance company as a personal profile "created from data about your shopping habits collected on-line and off-line", or something like this. Don't know for sure if that's actually happening, but I assume it is.
- Legogris 7y ago
  Huh, had no idea, thanks for bringing that up. Obvious follow-up question: Say the insurance company is using a third-party that they buy some kind of individual "healthiness/sickness benchmark" from, that just so happens to be heavily derived from on this genetic information, which the health insurer never sees in raw - would that fall under this? Seems like an easy way to skirt this regulation, but i am obv NAL.
- adrianN 7y ago
  How far removed from genetic data does the data have to be so that insurance companies can use it? Can I start a business that analyzes genetic data for know risk factors and then sell only the risk factors to insurance companies?

mbreese 7y ago

Actually, they are expressly prohibited from using your genetic information to make decisions about your coverage. It's the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) [1], where: > ... health insurers may not use genetic information to make eligibility, coverage, underwriting or premium-setting decisions. However, it doesn't apply to all insurance: > It does not cover long-term care insurance, life insurance, or disability insurance. [1] https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/policy-issues/Genetic-Discrimination https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/policy-issues/Genetic-...

rurp 7y ago
This is good, but also leads to the obvious follow up question of how stringently it has and will be enforced. It's also illegal to lose PII and credit info for millions of people but, well, here we are.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Also, parallel construction. Also, data laundering - you drop DNA test data into a business analytics third party, and two data brokers later this arrives at your insurance company as a personal profile "created from data about your shopping habits collected on-line and off-line", or something like this. Don't know for sure if that's actually happening, but I assume it is.
Legogris 7y ago
Huh, had no idea, thanks for bringing that up. Obvious follow-up question: Say the insurance company is using a third-party that they buy some kind of individual "healthiness/sickness benchmark" from, that just so happens to be heavily derived from on this genetic information, which the health insurer never sees in raw - would that fall under this? Seems like an easy way to skirt this regulation, but i am obv NAL.
adrianN 7y ago
How far removed from genetic data does the data have to be so that insurance companies can use it? Can I start a business that analyzes genetic data for know risk factors and then sell only the risk factors to insurance companies?