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Right now, in Canada, there's a battle going on for its citizens' genes, as health insurance companies are using genome sequencing to assess risk (read: increase rates) for patients who are predisposed to certain diseases.
The country's privacy commissioner issued a policy statement last week saying that the government would really appreciate if health insurance companies left genetic testing out of whatever actuarial algorithms they're using, but hasn't banned the practice outright.
While Canada has universal health care that's highly
subsidized by (and often free for consumers), there are still plenty of
private insurers. And, right now, the country's health insurance
industry has instituted a voluntary moratorium on asking people to
specifically undergo genetic testing when they apply for coverage. But
that doesn't mean it never happens—it just happens in a different way.
If a person has already undergone genetic testing in the past, insurance
companies will regularly request that data from a prospective client's
doctors.
"If genetic testing has been done
and the information is available to the applicant for insurance and/or
the applicant’s physician, the insurer would request access to that
information just as it would for other aspects of the applicant’s health
history," the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association stated as its official policy on the issue.
The practice sets a pretty scary precedent that some have worried about for years—what
happens when and if a baby is genetically tested at birth and is
determined to be a risky investment for an insurance company? Some
countries, including the United States have (sort of) already banned the
practice, but there's still no law against it in Canada.
“Some of these tests—as time goes on, and now—are
important indicators with respect to risk,” Frank Zinatelli, a lawyer
with the CLHIA, told Canada's Globe and Mail. “So yes, we feel it’s important to be able to have access to those types of information.”
An insurance company flak would say that. There's
no denying that knowing whether someone is predisposed to having
Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or certain types of cancer is valuable
information for an insurance company. It's, perhaps, the most important
thing an insurance company can learn about a person, from a business
standpoint.
It's also why the United States, a country that seemingly
protects its citizens' privacy much less than Canada does passed a ban
on genetic discrimination back in 2008. There are loopholes in that law,
sure (it only covers health insurance and employment, not life
insurance), but it's better than any sort of "voluntary moratorium,"
especially when the industry is champing at the bit to expand the
practice. Meanwhile, a bill that would actually ban genetic
discrimination has been sitting in Canadian parliament since October, with little indication that it's going to move forward.
With nearly all of the nations insurance carriers represented in the
audience and on stage (C-level officials from RSA Group, Desjardins and
The Cooperators are involved in presentations and panel sessions), the
2-day Insurance Telematics Canada conference (May 28-29) will allow
telematics service providers such as iMetrik, Octo and IMS; technology
consultants such as IBM, Towers Watson and CGI; and insurance regulators
such as Financial Services Commission of Ontario and the Alberta
Treasury Board and Finance to gain a priceless insight into how
insurance carriers seek to utilise the strategic benefits that UBI can
deliver. A sample of the delegates can be found here - http://www.telematicsupdate.com/insurance-telematics-canada/attendees.php.
Usage-based insurance could be the
slippery slope that leads us all into an Orwellian driving future
How cheaply do we surrender our freedoms?
The nightmare of Big Brother — at least how I’ve always understood it
— has always been one that is forced upon its citizenry. To be sure,
the methods are always insidious, the doublespeak always cloaked in
soothing palliatives and the promise of a Utopian society, not to
mention the occasional financial incentive. But, as much as the process
of being constantly surveilled is stealthy and surreptitious, it is
always forced upon us. We would not, in a million years, volunteer for
an Orwellian future, right?
Oh, if only that were true.
It turns out that, in the last few years, some six million motorists —
mostly in the United Kingdom and the United States — have volunteered
to have a black box installed in their automobile that monitors their
behaviour behind the wheel, with all of the data from every kilometre of
their driving fed right back to their insurance companies.
The lure is that, should you drive according to the insurer’s
guidelines, you could actually have your monthly insurance premium
reduced. Each insurer differs as to what they actually measure and what
specific limits they pose, but the premise is always the same: drive in a
“normal” manner — i.e. as if you were a little old lady from Pasadena
driving a Suzuki Sprint with one spark plug missing — and you will see
savings.
How significant are these savings? Well, it depends on whom you talk to. Desjardins’ new Ajusto
black-boxed insurance program being offered in Ontario and Quebec
promises as much as 25% savings if you respect their limits of not
accelerating harder than 13 kilometres per hour per second or braking
more than 15 km/h/sec. In Quebec — where the RCCAQ
(Le Regroupement des cabinets de courtage d’assurances du Québec) is
estimating that up to 30% of drivers may opt for such telematics-based
insurance by 2017 — the median savings is said to be about 12%. For a
little more perspective on that, remember that Quebec automobile
insurance is partially subsidized, the average consumer paying about
$650 annually for their supplementary property damage insurance. Do the
math and the costs savings to the average Ajusto customer in Quebec is
about seven bucks a month. Even for someone in Ontario currently paying
$2,000 a year, that net savings would translate into but $20 a month,
not enough to buy you a 12-pack unless The Beer Store is having a fire
sale.
The
Ajusto wireless device from Desjardins Insurance is installed into a
vehicle’s diagnostic port and measures distance travelled annually,
frequency of hard braking and acceleration, as well as time of day the
vehicle is driven to determine savings on insurance rates.
Handout, The Canadian Press
A few other companies in Quebec offer greater savings. Industrial Alliance’s Mobiliz,
for instance, targets drivers between the ages of 16 and 24, generally
acknowledged as those most at risk for traffic accidents. According to
the company, the average young adult saves about 25%. Of course, only
the most law-abiding of teenagers signs up for the program, especially
since Mobiliz is the only black box insurer that will actually raise
your rates — by up to 100% if you’ve been particularly naughty — if you
speed too dramatically or too often (for instance, every instance of
“extreme speed” will result in a premium of $10 being added to your
monthly bill). So that the insured can immediately see the result of
their driving behaviour, Mobiliz’s premiums are adjusted monthly meaning
their premiums could fluctuate dramatically.
Nonetheless, the lure of lower insurance rates is finding traction.
According to Towers Watson, a consulting firm in the U.S., about 200,000
Americans a month are signing up to have said black boxes installed in
their cars. The organization also says that “nearly 90% express openness
to buy a UBI (usage based insurance) policy in the U.S. if there is no
risk of premium increasing.” Canadian Business,
on the other hand, reports that a Deloitte survey here in the Great
White Frozen North revealed that 61% of Canadians would not be
interested in such surveillance devices in their cars.
In
this 2006 file photo, Adam Gordon, of Saint Paul, Minnesota, displays
the wireless device that his auto insurance provider uses to monitor his
driving speed, distance, braking and accelerating, and what time he’s
driving. In exchange, Gordon gets a 15% savings on his auto insurance
premiums. Archive photo, Craig Borck/St. Paul Pioneer Press/
That would seem to put us in a more independent mindset than our
Yankee friends, usually the last bastion of personal freedoms and
privacy. Nonetheless, I would still want to know why a seemingly
incredible 39% of Canadians think volunteering for such a program is a
good idea? Indeed, forget about the plight of the scofflaw motorist for a
moment; why would anyone volunteer to supply evidence of malfeasance of
any kind that might be used against them? This is akin to volunteering
for a tax audit. Or videotaping your business hotel room for your spouse
so that they might witness first-hand the nonsense you get up to when
they’re not around. Surely, even those of you smugly sitting in your
Toyota Priuses, comfortable in the knowledge that you’ll never speed,
understand that opening up every part of your personal life to constant
scrutiny — data loggers in your trousers and breathalyzers for everyone!
— is never a good idea.
So far, the push for the installation of these black boxes have been
rather modest campaigns by private insurance companies, all — at least
in Ontario — assuring that the information won’t be used for nefarious
purposes (i.e. raising your rates). Imagine, however, if the political
class gets involved. The Wynne government is already desperately looking
for ways to fulfill their promise to lower Ontario’s insurance rates.
And, what if politicians in B.C., Manitoba and Saskatchewan — provinces
where the entire insurance programs are government run — get behind this
constant monitoring of motorists? How long do you think it will be
before such schemes become mandatory and a cash cow for beleaguered
governments?
All this for as little as seven bucks a month. If we do end up in
some brackish Orwellian dystopia, we will have no one else to blame but
ourselves.
Could our driving data fall into to the wrong hands?
So far, the discussions regarding the privacy of the information
culled from owners’ black boxes has focused on who owns the data. To
their credit, virtually everyone in the insurance industry seems to
agree that the information must remain the property of the owner
(Quebec’s RCCAQ has asked for guidelines to be established that all
information collected remains the property of the insured and such
policies are already in place in Ontario). That said, the big insurance
companies aren’t the ones actually collecting the data; that generally
rests with third party data collection firms. And, depending on which
company is doing the information gathering, your particulars could be
housed in Canada, the United States, or even Italy. With the porosity of
data security now being top-of-the-fold headline material these days,
do we really need more Heartbleed leaks to understand that data mining
is the playground of the modern scoundrel?
Source: http://driving.ca/auto-news/news/motor-mouth-bowing-down-to-big-brother-for-cheap-insurance By David Booth Originally published: April 25, 2014
