Australia’s long-running battle over genetics and insurance crossed a decisive line today with federal legislation clearing the Senate and moving the country closer to a formal ban on the use of predictive genetic test results in life insurance underwriting. The reform is a major moment for the life insurance sector.
The bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025, amends the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 to prohibit insurers from using certain genetic testing information in life insurance contract decisions, while also making a related amendment to the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. The legislation is designed to stop genetic information being used against applicants when insurers decide whether to offer cover, or on what terms.
Today’s passage marks strong regulatory progress in a debate that has simmered for years among policymakers, researchers, consumer advocates and the insurance industry. The Parliamentary Library’s bills digest describes Schedule 1 of the bill as creating both a strict liability offence and a civil penalty to prohibit insurers from using protected genetic information in making life insurance contract decisions. It also notes regular five-year reviews are built into the framework, aimed at testing whether the provisions are effective and whether they create unintended consequences.
The policy has been building toward this point for some time. Treasury opened technical consultation on a proposed ban in February 2025, after the Albanese government had already announced in September 2024 that it would end the use of adverse predictive genetic test results in life insurance underwriting. When the bill was introduced in November 2025, the Minister for Financial Services Daniel Mulino said the legislation would give Australians confidence to undertake genetic testing without worrying about the effect on access to affordable life insurance.
The change also reflects dissatisfaction with the status quo. Before this legislative push, the sector operated under an industry moratorium first introduced in 2019 by the Financial Services Council and later incorporated into the Life Insurance Code of Practice in July 2023. But the Parliamentary Library says a June 2023 Monash University stakeholder report found the moratorium was inadequate to prevent genetic discrimination in life insurance and recommended it be replaced with a legislative prohibition.
For the market, the passage of the legislation sends a clear signal: the genetic testing question is no longer being left mainly to industry self-management. Instead, Canberra has opted for a statutory model that seeks to remove a barrier to potentially life-saving testing while preserving insurers’ ability to assess diagnosed medical conditions and other conventional underwriting information. The bills digest notes that “protected genetic information” will generally not extend to a clinical diagnosis of a disease based on or informed by genetic testing, a distinction likely to remain central to how the law is interpreted in practice.
CALI, which represents Australia’s life insurers, welcomed the legislation’s passage and framed it as a confidence-building measure for consumers considering genetic testing. That position is consistent with its earlier response when the bill was introduced in November 2025. At that time, CALI said the legislation was an important milestone and argued that no one should be deterred from taking predictive genetic tests that help them better manage their health. The organisation also pointed to the industry’s own 2019 mandatory standard restricting the use of predictive genetic test results in underwriting, presenting today’s reform as an evolution of a direction insurers had already publicly accepted.
CALI has also backed one of the bill’s most important safeguards for the industry: the five-year review mechanism. In its November statement, the group said the rapid evolution of genetic science made government action timely and necessary, and welcomed periodic review to ensure the law keeps pace with the predictive genetic testing landscape. That matters because while the industry is publicly embracing the reform, the legislation also creates a more formal compliance regime, complete with offences and penalties, in an area where science and underwriting practice are both changing fast.
With Senate approval secured, any amendments would still need House sign-off before Royal Assent and the bill becoming law.
