Personalised diagnostics is an area of science that is based on the idea that a person’s own clinical, genetic, genomic and environmental information can identify patient-specific diseases and target individual medical treatments to maximise response and help reduce adverse effects.
Over the last year, there has been a constant stream of media articles relating to the development of weight loss drugs, with research claiming that significant improvements in weight can be achieved, and an ever-growing list of new drugs being developed and approved for use.
These drugs are known as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists medications and are a class of drugs that have for some time been available for managing type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and more recently have emerged as an effective treatment option for weight loss.
All insurers aspire to pay every claim that lands on their desk. The claims process is the “moment of truth”, and our aim is to help vulnerable people; those with critical illnesses and the recently bereaved with the financial support they need, when that need it at its greatest. As an industry, we support thousands of customers, and the figures recently released by the ABI are testament to that.
In 2017 I wrote an article on how the use of modulators could potentially lead to a shift in how we approach Cystic Fibrosis (CF) from an underwriting perspective. At the time modulators had been around for approximately 5 years and were offering promising outcomes for the select CF sufferers who were fortunate enough to be eligible for the drugs. I wrote about the future of CF being bright and how the insurance industry may need to refine its underwriting approach to the condition, which, was falling into the ‘uninsurable’ category for the most part.
As SCOR celebrates the 10th anniversary of our publication SCORacle, it’s fitting that we report on a subject that appeared in our very first edition back in November 2014 yet remains as ever very topical, e-cigarettes (e cigs) /vaping.
Over the last 10 years, we have been true to our word, keeping you, our audience informed of developments and news on e-cigarettes /vaping usage as well as looking at potential risks as we all learned more on published research.
In this article, which first appeared online in The Actuary Magazine on 29th October, Vicky Gardner, Head of Data Analytics Solutions considers the impact of Generative AI on life and health underwriting.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 2030 and 2050, climate change will contribute to approximately 250,000 additional deaths annually due to under-nutrition, diseases, and heat stress alone. In this article, Kyle Armstrong, Protection R&D lead, takes a closer look at the impact this is having on mortality.
In November 2022, the pharmaceutical company Eisai released the full results from its phase 3 clinical trials of a new Alzheimer’s treatment drug called “lecanemab”. This is the first drug that has acted to successfully slow down the destruction of the brain in Alzheimer's by tackling the condition itself, rather than the symptoms it creates. This is achieved by reducing accumulations of an abnormal protein in the brain called amyloid.
