As part of the revisions to its 1997 mandatory code of practice, Britain's insurance industry has promised to refund any extra premiums incurred by individuals seeking insurance since November 1st 1998 on the basis of genetic tests, if such tests are found to be invalid for insurance purposes by the government's Genetics and Insurance Committee (GAIC) in a forthcoming report.

The decision to accept GAIC's conclusions retroactively was revealed on August 8th by the Association of British Insurers (ABI). However, this clause has landed the industry in the uncomfortable position of having to deny that it has backed down on an informal agreement with the British government not to use genetic tests for calculating insurance claims until the GAIC report is published. The ABI insists that no such moratorium was ever agreed.

The revised code of practice was widely seen as a bid to pre-empt strong government regulation—and in particular, a threatened moratorium on all uses of genetic information in issuing life insurance policies, as had been recommended by the Human Genetics Advisory Commission.

However, the ABI's head of life insurance, Richard Hobbs, sparked the new controversy in July when he told a meeting at the Royal Society in London that the industry was continuing to ask insurance applicants to reveal the results of tests taken voluntarily, while awaiting the GAIC's conclusions.

At present, there are seven potentially hereditary conditions, ranging from Huntingdon's disease to breast cancer, about which insurance companies can ask questions, although the industry points out that in cases such as breast cancer, for example, the results of genetic tests are only likely to be considered if there is already a strong family history. The GAIC will meet at the end of this month to examine the criteria of genetic testing and the relevance to insurability.

David Sainsbury, Britain's science minister, has confirmed that the government remains opposed to the industry's decision to proceed with this practice until, especially when there had been a widespread understanding that industry would refrain from doing so. But Vic Rance, a spokesman for the ABI, says that although insurance companies had agreed to adopt the GAIC's eventual conclusions, there had been no agreement on a moratorium on genetic tests in the meantime.