While the FAAA supports the broader use of genetic testing for health purposes, she states a ban on using adverse genetic test results in life insurance will raise premiums across the board.<\/p>\n \u201cIf some of the members of the insurance pool are not paying the level of premiums that are warranted by the risks they present, then other members of the insurance pool will ultimately pay more,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is an issue of equity.<\/p>\n \u201cThis genetic testing ban is likely to result in certain Australians who are aware they have a higher than average risk \u2013 after receiving genetic testing results \u2013 getting access to life insurance at a lower cost than their risk would warrant, whilst others will ultimately pay more.\u201d<\/p>\n Abood says advocates of a complete ban on the use of genetic testing have compared life insurance with health insurance, \u201c\u2026highlighting that health insurance is community rated\u201d.<\/p>\n …the cost of premiums are determined by the level of risk…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cThat model is not the norm in insurance,\u201d she says. \u201cIn most forms of insurance, access to cover and the cost of premiums are determined by the level of risk and the insurer\u2019s willingness to accept that category of risk.\u201d<\/p>\n The FAAA favours a model where the existing moratorium on insurers using genetic testing in life insurance below certain caps ($500,000) was legislated (albeit with indexation of the thresholds).<\/p>\n \u201cWe think this would provide a sensible balance,” says Abood. “Allowing people with high risk genetic test results to still access life insurance, but not at a level that would unreasonably impact the life insurance pools and increase costs for existing life insurance policyholders.”<\/p>\n Abood says the FAAA does not want to put obstacles in the way of people accessing genetic testing.<\/p>\n “However, neither do we want to see this ban work to the disadvantage of existing and future life insurance policyholders who will potentially pay much more for insurance as a result of the ban,” she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Life insurance premiums could rise if a Government ban on adverse genetic test results in life insurance underwriting is introduced, says the FAAA. In its submission to Treasury, as part of the government\u2019s consultation period on the idea, the organisation’s CEO Sarah Abood says the proposed model is not the norm in insurance. While the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":76455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,8282,5121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-associations","category-government","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sarah](\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2025\/01\/Sarah-Abood.jpeg\")