Free-market advocates and insurance industry officials continue to warn Florida lawmakers against passing a blanket ban on using genetic-testing information in life insurance coverage decisions.
So far, no genetic-testing legislation has been introduced for consideration next year, but some industry representatives who took part in a Florida Chamber of Commerce insurance summit this month expect the topic to resurface in the coming year. Concerns also abound that bills that attempt to protect private data can lead to more litigation over breaches.
A bill sponsored this year by Florida state Rep. Jayer Williamson (R-Pace) would have banned life insurance and long-term care firms from using genetic test results in the underwriting of their insurance policies. The bill passed the Florida House on an 88-26 vote earlier this year but stalled in the state Senate.
Supporters of such legislation say private medical information should be shielded from use in life insurance coverage, but Sal Nuzzo, vice president of policy at the James Madison Institute, told the Florida Record that no other state has such a ban on genetic information.
If such legislation were signed into law, insurance brokers in the other 49 states would have a clear path if they had a client who had a genetic marker for an illness, Nuzzo said.
“I would advise that person to come to Florida and get as much life insurance as they can because that information will not be available to any underwriter,” he said.
But lawmakers could reasonably debate privacy protections on the sale of data related to increasingly popular direct-to-consumer genetic tests, according to Nuzzo.
“That leads us down a very bad path,” he said.
Continuing to allow more medically reliable genetic test results that are part of patient medical files to be used in life insurance coverage should not price people with hereditary predispositions to certain illnesses out of the life insurance market, Nuzzo said. Insurers that do not use genetic test results would continue to operate in the state, he said.
“As technical advances [are made], I think it is vital for the insurance market in the state to adapt to the technology, not try to put our heads in the sand and say 'that’s bad and we don't want it,'” Nuzzo said.
Alternative genetic-privacy legislation this year came in the form of Senate Bill 258, which would have prevented life insurers from requiring potential clients from taking genetic tests before getting coverage. That bill would not have banned insurers from considering data already in the person’s medical records, however.