The Australian parliament is set to pass legislation today to ban life insurers from using genetic test results to discriminate against people applying for life insurance.

Once the law comes into effect in about six months, it will apply to all new life insurance contracts. These include for death cover, income protection, disability and trauma/critical illness cover.

So what does the new legislation mean for people taking out life insurance later this year? How about travel insurance or health insurance?

Here’s what we know, don’t know and need to clarify.

What’s changing with life insurance?

The new law will prohibit life insurers from using “protected genetic information” in underwriting.

Protected genetic information includes all health information that predicts or infers someone’s risk of future disease based on the results of genetic testing. In other words, life insurers cannot deny you cover or charge you higher premiums if you took a genetic test that predicted a higher risk of cancer, for example.

The definition does not include someone’s actual diagnosis (even if that was via a genetic test). The same goes for someone’s family history of disease, which can still be used by life insurers when underwriting. So if you or your sibling have been diagnosed with cancer, that could still be legally taken into account.

Underwriting is the process some insurers undertake when assessing the risk you bring as an insured person. They ask many questions when you apply for cover to gather information for........

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