Analysis
Australia bans genetic test results in life underwriting next month. New Zealand does not.
Source: 1News, 'I'd probably be dead': Woman warns of gene testing insurance fears
From 8 October 2026 an Australian life insurer cannot use an adverse genetic test result to price or refuse cover. A New Zealand insurer can ask for the same result and use it. Two countries, one industry, opposite rules, five weeks apart.
By Henry Smith · Regulation · 2026-09-08
What this means for you If you are considering a predictive genetic test in New Zealand, the result can be asked for and used by a life or health insurer assessing a future application. There is no statutory bar and no published industry-wide moratorium. Cover taken out before a test is assessed on what you knew then; cover applied for afterwards is assessed on the result. That sequencing decision sits with you, and it is not reversible.
New Zealand insurers can legally ask for and use genetic test results when assessing applications for life and health insurance. 1News reported the position on 21 August 2026, framing it as an unresolved policy question rather than a settled one.
Australia has resolved it. Legislation passed in 2026 prohibits the use of adverse genetic test results in life insurance underwriting, with the ban commencing 8 October 2026. It works by amending the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, and it operates as a statutory prohibition rather than a voluntary code. There is a narrow exception where a consumer volunteers a favourable result and using it improves their outcome.
Five weeks from now, the same insurance group operating on both sides of the Tasman will be barred from doing something in Sydney that remains lawful in Auckland.
What this actually means for you
A predictive genetic test tells you about risk you already carry. It does not create the risk. But it creates information, and in New Zealand that information is currently underwritable.
The practical consequence is a sequencing problem:
- Cover applied for before a test is assessed on what you and your doctors knew at the time. A result that does not exist cannot be disclosed.
- Cover applied for after a test is assessed with the result available, and an insurer can ask for it.
That is not a loophole to exploit. Your duty of disclosure is real and continuing, and an application must answer honestly what has actually happened. The point is narrower and it is about timing: someone weighing up a test who also intends to increase their life cover should understand that the order of those two decisions changes the second one.
The chilling effect is the policy problem
The argument that persuaded the Australian Parliament was not fairness to insurers or to applicants. It was that people avoid clinically useful tests because of what a result might do to their insurability.
A woman with a family history of breast cancer who declines BRCA testing because she is worried about her life cover is making a worse medical decision for an insurance reason. The test could change her screening, her preventive options and her survival odds. The insurance consequence is what stops her.
That is the harm the ban is aimed at, and it is a public health argument rather than a consumer protection one.
What has not been established here
We could not find a published New Zealand statutory reform enacted or in force on this. Nor could we find a published industry-wide compulsory moratorium equivalent to a legal prohibition.
We also could not find a current published Financial Services Council position on it in the material available, so we are not going to characterise one. If the FSC or an individual insurer has adopted a voluntary standard, it has not been published where we could verify it, and an unverified moratorium is worth nothing to someone deciding whether to take a test.
Individual insurers may have their own practices. Those are not the same as a rule, they are not enforceable by an applicant, and they can change.
What to do about it
If you are considering a predictive genetic test, and you also expect to need more life, trauma or income cover in the next few years, get the cover reviewed first. Not to conceal anything, but because the order genuinely matters and cannot be reversed afterwards.
If you already hold cover, a test result does not affect it. Your existing policy is a contract assessed at the time it was written. A later test does not reopen it, does not change your premium, and does not have to be reported for cover already in force. Read your policy's continuing-disclosure clause if you want certainty, and ask before you assume the worst.
If you have already tested and are now applying, disclose it. Non-disclosure is the most common reason a life claim fails in New Zealand, and a concealed result is a far worse position than a loaded or excluded one. An adviser can tell you which insurers underwrite a given result most favourably, because they do differ.
What to watch
Australia's commencement on 8 October 2026 will produce the first real evidence of what such a ban does to a life market: whether prices move, whether anti-selection materialises at the scale insurers have warned about, and whether testing rates rise.
New Zealand tends to follow Australian conduct reform in this sector, usually late. There is nothing before Parliament here that we can point to. Until there is, the position is simply that the rule is different on each side of the Tasman, and only one side has decided.
What this means for your cover
What a policy pays, how to size it, and how a rule change reaches an existing policy. Life insurance in New Zealand
Sources
Every source below was read and checked on 21 August 2026.
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Explore related pages: Life Insurance, Income Protection, Health Insurance, Trauma Insurance, Ongoing Protection.