[Rare diseases from a life insurance perspective]

A rare disease is defined as a disease that affects a maximum of 5 in 10,000 people. As of today there are roughly 7000 different rare diseases known. On account of this one can say that "rare diseases are rare, but people affected by them are common". For Germany this amounts to: 4 million people that are affected by a rare disease. Diagnosis, therapeutic options and prognosis have substantially improved for some of the rare diseases. Besides the general medical advances--especially in the area of genetics--this is also due to networking and sharing information by so-called Centres of Competence on a national and international scale. This results in a better medical care for the corresponding group of patients. Against this backdrop, the number of people applying for life assurance who are suffering from a complex or rare disease has risen steadily in the last years. Due to the scarce availability of data regarding long-term prognosis of many rare diseases, a biomathematical, medical and actuarial expertise on the part of the insurer is necessary in order to adequately assess the risk of mortality and morbidity. Furthermore there is quite a focus on the issue of rare diseases from not only politics but society as well. Therefore evidence based medical assessment by insurers is especially important in this group of applicants--thinking of legal compliance and reputational risk.