Insurers fear gene tests will drive up Alzheimers claim ratio
Insurers fear the growing popularity of gene tests will have a detrimental effect on the long-term care insurance sector. Firms such as 23andMe offer saliva tests which can predict an individual's genetic risk for developing conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. However, customers are not required to disclose these results to insurers offering long-term care plans. Insurers would have to raise policy prices to cover an unanticipated increase in policyholders who develop Alzheimer's, according to Don Taylor, a professor of public policy at Duke University. Meanwhile, individuals at low risk for long term diseases could decide that insurance is not worth the cost. 
But last month, with the approval of the Food and Drug Administration, the gene testing company 23andMe began offering tests that reveal whether people have the variant, as well as assessing their risks for developing such conditions as Parkinson’s and celiac disease.

Other genetics companies are planning to offer similar tests, and soon millions of people will have a better idea what their medical futures might be. Recent research has found that many, like Ms. Reilly, are likely to begin preparing for the worst.

But for companies selling long-term care insurance, these tests could be a disaster, sending risky patients in search of policies even as those with fewer risks shy away, damaging an already fragile business. “There is a question about whether the industry is in a death spiral anyway,” said Robert Hunter, director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America. “This could make it worse.”

The tests are simple: All people have to do is send away a saliva sample and pay $199. Their disease risks, if they say they want to know them, will be delivered with a report on ancestry and on how their genes influence such traits as flushing when they drink alcohol or having straight hair.

The company will not reveal how many people have received disease-risk data, but it says that in Britain and Canada, where it has offered such testing for several years, about three-quarters of their customers have asked for it. 23andMe has sold its genetic services to more than two million people worldwide since 2007.