Nanterre (AFP)

The insurer Aviva, who refused to pay the death benefit to a widow, on the grounds that her husband had not declared that he was carrying the gene responsible for Huntington's disease, was convicted by the court on the basis of the prohibition of any genetic discrimination.

The District Court (TGI) Nanterre sentenced the insurer to pay about 300,000 euros due under the guarantee, and 3,000 euros in damages, according to the decision of 25 October that AFP was able to consult.

In this file, reported in September by Médiapart, the deceased had taken out a death guarantee contract in 2016.

He knew he was carrying the gene responsible for Huntington's disease since 2003. He had then made a genetic test in the perspective of becoming a father, having had cases in his family.

In 2016, however, he had no symptoms of this incurable neurological disease, which is triggered ineluctably in the carriers of the gene, but at a different age according to the people. A doctor who followed him had written a medical certificate declaring him "free of any neurological signs" at the end of 2017.

After his death in 2018, Aviva incidentally learned that the deceased was a carrier of the gene, and refused the guarantee, believing that he should have mentioned it in the medical form and that he had therefore made an "intentional misrepresentation".

His widow, who has three young children, then sued the insurer and, after a hearing on 23 September, the court ruled in his favor.

"The insurer may not oppose to the applicant for insurance the result of predictive genetic tests for the purpose of seeking a disease that has not yet been declared, or, as a result, to reproach him for not disclosing, at the moment its adhesion, such a predisposition when the disease has not yet manifested, "according to the decision.

This is a "broad interpretation" of the principle of non-discrimination genetic, registered in the code of public health, said the lawyer of the family, Me Elodie Lachambre.

"The court has responded to all the arguments in defense, whether by prohibiting the insurer to take into account information from a genetic test, regardless of how it has been aware, but also by confirming that, regardless of the genetic predispositions of the insured, they do not question the random nature of the contract, "she said.

Asked by AFP, Aviva Vie said "take note" of this decision and not wish to comment.

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