L’impact des principes éthiques sur le marché d’assurance en présence de tests génétiques

Abstract

According to certain authors, the genetic tests entail the exclusion of agents from the insurance market. For that reason, several individuals advocate in the name of ethical principles to ban the use of genetic tests on the market. However if for the ethical reasons, the information remains private, the contract of solidarity which insures a complete mutualization of the risk and an access equal to all to the insurance market can be threatened. The agents themselves can use this information either to lower their premium if they are low risk agents either to increase their insurance demand if they are high risk agents. This situation can induce an adverse selection phenomenon. In this article, we look for the consequences of ethical principles on the insurance market. We show that sometimes it is rational to let genetic information as public information.