The number of patients newly diagnosed with cancer and those deemed long-term cancer ‘survivors’ - patients fit and alive more than five years after diagnosis - has been increasing worldwide, yielding new challenges for insurance companies. Risk factor evaluations are becoming more important to try to predict the evolution of critical illness prevalence at various ages. Furthermore, long-term survivors have been constantly challenging insurance companies for better coverage, who have adapted in return by offering innovative products and underwriting approaches for these new classes of customers.

The SCOR Cancer Underwriting Project has developed a mathematical model based on easily obtainable variables, which can enable an accurate estimate of the excess mortality rate of individuals with cancer. To study this approach, tumors with various biological and clinical features were selected for both breast and colon cancer.

Mathematical models like this are developed for the calculators used within SOLEM, SCOR’s market-leading life risk assessment tool, which has recently been upgraded. (click here for the SCOR Live post on this upgrade)

The publication was written by Dr Eric Raymond, Oncologist and Associate Medical Director, based in Paris, and Thibault Antoine, Head of the Critical Illness R&D Center, based in Singapore.

Watch the video below to see them discuss the SCOR Underwriting Cancer Project: