Legal and General No Longer Considering a History of Cancer in the Family as a Factor Preventing Consideration for Their Preferred Classes

Aug 7, 2012 Life Insurance Updates

As of August 6, 2012, the Legal and General America companies (Banner and William Penn) will no longer consider family cancer histories as an adverse underwriting factor that would prevent applicants from consideration for their preferred classes unless there are features of the family history that suggest a hereditary cancer syndrome may be present.

According to Legal & General:

The development of cancer is a complex process involving the interaction of genetic and environmental factors.  For a long time, we have been carefully studying the risk that a family history of cancer may convey to a person applying for life insurance.  Our research clearly demonstrates that simply coming from a family that has one or more members with cancer does not necessarily increase the cancer risk or mortality risk among all members in that family.  The risk to a proposed insured who has family members with cancer depends on the type of cancer, whether the proposed insured also has a past history of cancer, and the specific details fo the family history.

Legal & General America will continue to carefully examine and underwrite family histories.  In a very small portion of cases, there may be features that raise concerns that the risk of cancer to family members may inherited.  But, based on our research, we have concluded that unless the history is suggestive of a hereditary cancer syndrome, the mortality risk does not justify using family history of a cancer as a factor that would prevent consideration for our preferred classes.

 Click for a life insurance quote or call us at 1-888-950-TERM (8376).

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