Earlier quoted context omitted.
The analogy I have used in the past is this fear is like thinking that health insurance companies were more likely to buy the old Marlboro Miles database rather than just making detailing your smoking history a required part of the application process. If these companies have the legal clearance to use DNA data, why would they be satisfied only having secondhand access to that data for a relatively small subset of th…
Yes. Behavioral data is in most cases far more useful to them than DNA. No need to go all the way of using the non-coding SNPs in a genealogical test to infer your coding DNA, to infer your propensity for smoking, when they can just find out if you smoke instead.
Makes perfect sense to me, to be honest. Outside of certain genetic deceases, the behavioral aspect is what ultimately matters. And afaik in terms of the US, a large proportion of the population dies due to behavioral aspects (which I would count obesity rates as an outcome of that).
A simple example: yes, I would say I am genetically predisposed to have addictive habits, suffer from liver failure due to alcohol+drugs, and/or deal with lung problems from smoking (given that this was the fate of multiple males up my ancestry tree from both sides of the family). Naturally, I believe that it is more valuable for an insurance company to know whether I actually engage in those harmful behaviors vs. my genes dictating the likelihood of me engaging in those behaviors. In the absence of the former, the latter could be pretty useful, but otherwise there is no competition at all.
Sure, genes can give you a probability of those behavioral aspects occurring, but going for the primary metric you are looking for vs. a weak predictor of it clearly makes way more sense.