Life insurance lobbyists fight to flip the perceptions on genetic testing

NEW ORLEANS – With the rapid evolution of technology around artificial intelligence and genetic testing, lawmakers are often caught trying to make rules for industries they don’t fully understand.

Life insurers, for example, want to sell as many policies and cover as many people as possible, said Dr. Paul Quartararo, vice president and chief medical director for New York Life. But that is coming into frequent conflict with state legislators who have a lot of “misconceptions” about how life insurance works.

“We're here to sell as many policies as we can. But in order to do that, we need to maintain fiscal responsibility by looking at the risk and having it priced accurately so that everybody pays into the system appropriate to their risk. Unless that fundamental piece is in place the whole thing falls apart,” said Quartararo, speaking during an opening session Monday at the 2025 Life Insurance and Annuity Conference, hosted by LIMRA and LOMA, ACLI and SOA.

Genetic testing is one thorny issue for legislators and industry leaders. Life insurers deal with the sci-fi image of underwriters profiling consumers based on their genetic markers. That just isn’t true, Quartararo said.

“We know of no life insurance company asking for genetic test results,” Quartararo said. “Nobody, when they draw your blood, is sending the blood off to do testing. Nobody's asking for genetic test results.”

But genetic testing is a tool for doctors and underwriters to use once medical symptoms appear, he added. It’s the difference between predictive genetic testing and diagnostic genetic testing, the panel explained.

“The genetic tests I'm referring to are tests that are looking for something specific,” Quartararo said. “If you have signs or symptoms and you are asked by your doctor to have a diagnostic test, they might be looking for one or two or three genes like the bracket. Depending on the result, that might guide how the doctor approaches your health going forward.”

And it doesn’t equate to an automatic rejection for life insurance, Quartararo said. Several companies will offer life insurance to someone with abnormal test results who is undergoing “surveillance,” he said.

“Different companies have different products with different risk tolerances,” he said. “Some companies won't touch that, but some companies will.”

Off to a bad start in Florida

Jan Graeber is a senior actuary at the American Council of Life Insurers and moderated the session. She recalled the 2020 Florida effort to ban genetic testing for life insurance purposes, an effort rooted in politics, Graeber said.

The Florida law prohibits life, long-term care, and disability insurers from using genetic information to discriminate against individuals, effectively banning the use of genetic test results in underwriting policies.

Industry lobbying efforts resulted in an amendment that allowed life insurers to use genetic information in underwriting if it's in the medical record and tied to a diagnosis.

“It kind of opened the door for a lot of copycat legislation that we're now dealing with in other states,” Graeber said.

Often, legislators are well meaning in their efforts, but cannot be expected to be experts in very complicated issues like genetic testing, Quartararo said. The question industry lobbyists ask is “what are you trying to accomplish?” It is often the best way to approach the issue of genetic testing.

Despite that, Graeber recalled a recent meeting with a lawmaker in an unnamed state where she and Quartararo each had two minutes to make their case.

“A lot of times, especially in those hearings, you have legislators that are walking in and out, and they may be working on something else while you're testifying,” she said. “So, what we found is that a lot of times it's helpful to go meet one on one with the regulator, or one on one with the legislator.”

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