Do cancer screening advances save lives or diagnose more sickness and what would this mean for the Critical Illness (CI) market, Gen Re has asked.
Adele Groyer, actuary at Gen Re described trends where an increase in cancer screening programmes in other counties led to higher incidences of cancer being recorded.
Among Irish males there had been a fivefold increase in prostate cancer in older ages due to a greater incidence of the Prostate Specific Antigen test.
If cancer screening and other associated tests were more widely available, this could impact CI,
However, currently saliva tests are not yet available. Predictive tests for hereditary cancers could be available in 5 years' time. Tests to diagnose cancer are a long way off but there are early indications that they are viable.
Groyer also described critical illness as the "obvious problem child" in the protection market. With life cover, greater incidences of cancer would mean costs were lowered but they would be raised for CI policies.
She said any increase in cancer screening and early detection would lead to "greater complexity" for CI claims.
Groyer continued:"There [would be questions] over the severity and exclusions with claims.
"Early discovery of cancers where the level of invasion is unclear would make claims more complicated. Until now there has been reluctance to screen for cancer because over-diagnosis is problematic.
"But this problem is being overcome by means of genetic technology that shows which cancers a high risk and which are low risk. Only high risk cases need aggressive treatment. It is therefore only for CI insurers that over-diagnosis presents a problem because definitions are based purely on diagnosis, not on treatment.
"Because of developments in screening for hereditary cancer predisposition, there is a need for underwriting development and review of the genetic testing moratorium."
