A study in the Netherlands claims to have uncovered evidence that insurance companies are circumventing a Dutch law that bans discrimination against people on the basis of information obtained from genetic screening.
Researchers asked a sample of 202 people with and without familial hypercholesterolaemia whether they had had problems getting life insurance. Seventeen of the 46 (37%) who had applied for life insurance had had difficulties, and all of them had familial hypercholesterolaemia, according to the study published in the journal of the Royal Dutch Medical Association (Medisch Contact 2000;10:360).
The researchers, from Amsterdam's Academic Medical Centre, emphasised that the genetic information about the disease, which insurers should not have known, seemed to have been the “important factor” in the participants' difficulties, not their cholesterol concentrations.
After the study was published, members of parliament argued that these difficulties were just the “tip of the iceberg” and demanded an evaluation of the law on medical examinations.
The Association of Insurers denied breaking the law and argued that people applying for insurance are asked whether they have high cholesterol concentrations and “not explicitly” if they have a hereditary condition.