Life Insurer Hartford To Reduce Rates for Some Patients With Early Stage Breast Cancer
Officials for Hartford Financial Services Group announced the company will offer life insurance to women with certain forms of early stage breast cancer at the same rates that they offer to healthy women because of clinical progress in the reduction of fatalities from the disease, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal reports. According to Hartford officials, the company will offer life insurance to women who have received treatment for the first time for "small, well-differentiated, localized Stage 1 breast cancer and have a strong prognosis for survival based on the results of common tests" at a rate of $1,545 annually.
In the past, such women had to pay $1,500 annually, as well as an additional $2,500 annually for five years. The new policy would apply to about 100,000 women treated for breast cancer over the past five years, according to Hartford.
Anne Hoven, chief medical director for Hartford, said, "We see it as an affirmation of the progress made in the clinical area," adding that breast cancer fatalities have decreased by 20% since 1991 because of improvements in detection and treatment of the disease.
"I think many people believe they can't get life insurance because of a medical condition, and that was true years ago, but not today," she said (Mincer, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, 10/6).