Blog | Gen Re

Our Perspective

Changing Views on E-Cigarettes – No Smoke Without Fire

By Ross Campbell |November 14, 2019|English | Français

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. just announced an investigation of a multistate outbreak of e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury (EVALI). By November there were over 1,800 confirmed and probable cases...
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Building Underwriting Models for Mental Health

By Dr. Chris Ball |October 08, 2019|English

As a young psychiatrist, I went through a period of being excited about the brain. It seemed that emerging technologies in imaging and genetics would transform clinical psychiatry. This was encouraging news with mental health problems causing the most...
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Why It’s Time to Re-evaluate Cystic Fibrosis

By Jon Parker |September 10, 2019|English

Cystic fibrosis was rarely encountered by Life and Health underwriters until relatively recently. However, advances in our understanding of this inherited lung disease, and the emergence of more effective treatments, mean that children born with the...
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Modeling Mortality at Older Ages - Benefits and Challenges

By Jean-Marc Fix |August 19, 2019|English | Español

When one looks at a curve of the mortality rates by age in developed countries, we notice a very regular pattern. Especially the middle-age groups - age 30 to 70+, for example - seem to have close to an exponential curve in mortality rates. This observation,...
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Genetic Testing Put Under the Microscope

By Dr. John O'Brien |August 13, 2019|English | Français

Genetic testing is becoming more accessible and commonplace, with new genetic links to diseases regularly being identified. However, the many constraints on the use of predictive genetic tests in insurance means that the easy availability of direct...
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Medical Advances and Reality Checks for Underwriters

By Annika Tiedemann |August 06, 2019|English | Français | Deutsch

Earlier this year researchers at Heidelberg University Hospital announced the development of a blood test that can detect breast cancer cells in patients - with higher accuracy than mammography. Around the same time it was reported that a second and...
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