IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlawss/v11y2021i1p2-d714008.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Genetic Discrimination in Access to Life Insurance: Does Ukrainian Legislation Offer Sufficient Protection against the Adverse Consequences of the Genetic Revolution to Insurance Applicants?

Author

Listed:
  • Mykhailo Arych

    (Department of Finance, Educational and Scientific Institute of Economics and Management, National University of Food Technologies, 01601 Kyiv, Ukraine)

  • Yann Joly

    (Department of Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, QC H3A 0G1, Canada)

Abstract

This paper presents an inter-disciplinary study of the risk for, and protections against, genetic discrimination in access to life insurance in Ukraine. It aims (i) to review questions related to genetic information, health status, and family history currently included in Ukrainian life insurance application forms; (ii) to analyze the Ukrainian legislation related to equity and nondiscrimination and to determine whether it provides adequate protection against genetic discrimination (GD). Research findings of our insurance application forms review show that Ukrainian life insurance companies ask broad questions about health and family history that may be perceived by applicants as requiring the disclosure of their genetic information. Our legal analysis shows that today there are no genetic specific law protecting Ukrainians people against GD in insurance. However, Ukrainian human rights legislation provides some protection against multiple grounds of discrimination and given the ratification by Ukraine of the European Convention on Human Rights it is possible that these grounds could be interpreted by tribunals as also including genetic characteristics. As a next step, Ukrainian researchers should develop a survey to obtain much needed data on the incidence and impact of GD in Ukraine. Following this it will be possible for policymakers to better assess whether there is a need for an explicit non-GD law in this country. Such a law would have the benefit of explicitly aligning Ukraine’s legal framework with that of many of its European partners.

Suggested Citation

  • Mykhailo Arych & Yann Joly, 2021. "Genetic Discrimination in Access to Life Insurance: Does Ukrainian Legislation Offer Sufficient Protection against the Adverse Consequences of the Genetic Revolution to Insurance Applicants?," Laws, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:11:y:2021:i:1:p:2-:d:714008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/11/1/2/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/11/1/2/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Boyer-Kassem & Sébastien Duchêne & Bart Engelen, 2017. "On Discrimination in Health Insurance," GREDEG Working Papers 2017-23, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France, revised Dec 2017.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:11:y:2021:i:1:p:2-:d:714008. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.