Poster 21: Insurance Ownership and Genetic Risk

Abstract

Background Individuals at risk for Huntington disease (HD) face a possibly shortened lifespan, and, as a result, they may want to own more life insurance. However, insurance companies may discriminate against this population, resulting in lower ownership rates. Methods We compared rates of life insurance ownership and amount of life insurance owned between 567 individuals at risk for HD in the PHAROS population (a longitudinal, observational study of individuals at risk for HD) and matched controls in the nationally representative Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Individuals were matched based on five-year age group, gender, employment status, race, marital status, whether they had children, and education category. If an individual from PHAROS was matched with more than one individual from the SCF, insurance ownership was compared to the average of the matched controls. We compared rates of insurance ownership and amount of ownership with t-tests. Results Compared to their matched controls, individuals at risk for HD were 3 percentage points more likely to own life insurance (86.4% vs. 83.4%, p = 0.04). However, among those who owned insurance, individuals at risk for HD were 17 percentage points less likely to own a policy larger than $250,000 (49% vs. 32%, p Conclusions Individuals at risk for a genetic disease are slightly more likely to own life insurance than matched controls, although they tend to own smaller policies. The higher overall ownership suggests higher demand for insurance. The smaller size of policies may point to discrimination. However, this could also point to lower income in this population, which we were not able to adjust for in this study.