Critical illness: Bowel cancer screening may impact on future premiums
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) Critical Illness (CI) Working Party has been debating changes to the cancer definition on CI policies following news that bowel cancer screening could soon be implemented across the UK.
The results of a successful pilot concluded that a nationwide screening programme was feasible within the NHS and that it should lead to a reduction in colorectal cancer deaths.
If the programme goes ahead, bowel cancer could soon be detected in sufferers earlier, meaning insurers could have to pay out claims to more people at an earlier stage of diagnosis.
However, the ABI believes that there is no need for a change to the current cancer definition at this time. Nick Kirwan, chairman of the ABI's CI Working Party, said: "Colorectal cancer is an aggressive form of tumour and if it is caught at an early stage it will save lives. However even if a patient had not been screened, they would have soon shown more obvious symptoms, on evidence of which insurers would have paid out a critical illness claim anyway."
However a slight impact on premiums for CI cover was not ruled out. "We expect the impact to be marginally negative on the market, with the effect on pricing being relatively small. Our initial view is that we do not need to change the cancer definition because of this," added Kirwan.
A national screening programme, if implemented, would detect colorectal cancer based on faecal occult blood testing. During the pilot, 478,250 people aged 50 to 59 in England and Scotland used this test. According to a report in the British Medical Journal, a total of 552 cases of colorectal cancer were detected.
Higher rates were found in Scotland than England and in men rather than women. The rate of detection was also found to increase with age.
