House calls. (Comment).

In the January 2002 edition of Best's Review, an Insight column by Barry Wilkinson described self-diagnostic tests as an important concern for the life insurance industry. These at-home tests are potentially a way to provide more accurate, faster and less expensive underwriting for insurance products.

In the future, it is likely that a life insurance applicant will be told to go to the local pharmacy and pick up a kit that contains an at-home general insurance test, which will be submitted to the insurance company.

The biggest potential problem with using kits to provide underwriting information is fraud. However, there are ways to scientifically ensure that the individual submitting the data is the individual applying for insurance. It is only a matter of time before economic DNA identification, eye examination or some other foolproof system is available to confirm that the test data is from the named applicant.

There are many clear advantages of at-home testing:

* Speed: No appointments are needed;

* Cost: Self-service, no staff to pay;

* Application: Even nonmedical, worksite and other applications will be served by at-home testing;

* Fewer rejections: The kit may include acceptance guidelines, so obvious rejections will not be submitted for consideration.

* There will be limits to the application of at-home testing even after all the necessary technology and safety mechanisms are in place. Very large policies or complicated medical situations will still require medical examinations.

At-home testing also can be a valuable public service. People who might otherwise ignore or not understand warning signs will get objective feedback from the at-home tests and then seek professional medical advice.

The use of at-home testing may even lead to drug stores becoming insurance distributors. It is not a great stretch to imagine pharmacy giants installing self-service life insurance counters near their front doors to take advantage of the enormous amount of customer traffic and customers' computerized pharmaceutical records. The scenario could be that an interested customer does the self test at the application counter near the store entrance and receives a policy at the checkout counter--all within just a matter of minutes and paid for by credit card.

Is the use of at-home test kits a dream? Yes, but there will be those among us who will work to make the dream a reality in the not-too-distant future.

Jay M. Jaffe

President

Actuarial Enterprises Ltd.

Chicago

Corrections

* Anthem Inc. acquired Blue Gross & Blue Shield of Nevada in October 1999. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebraska is an independent, not-for-profit mutual insurance company. Information was incorrect in an article in the March 2002 edition.

* Financial information for Empire Blue Gross & Blue Shield and Anthem Inc. was incorrect in a chart in the March 2002 edition. The following are the correct figures for 2000, stated in thousands of dollars:

Empire: total assets, $2,252,483; premiums earned, $3,876,927; net income, $190,380.

Anthem: total assets, $5,708,500; premiums, $7,737,300; net income, $226,000.

* George McKeon's name was misspelled in an article in the April edition.

* F.W. Purmort's name was misspelled in an article in the April edition.