Hi everyone, I have Kate Baldry joining me today to share her insights into early onset colo-rectal cancer, a diagnosis that is happening more and more. As a Research and Development Underwriter at Hannover Re, Kate has incredible access and insight to claims and health data. Kate has been spending time analysing the increasing rate of bowel cancer diagnoses and any trends that could be causing this.

It was particularly interesting for me as Kate shares that some of the patterns that they have seen are due to people being tall, healthy BMI and having their gallbladder removed - I hit all three of these! The main takeaway that I have from our chat is that whilst these factors might contribute to bowel cancer diagnosis, at the moment it is still very much an unknown. There are a lot of theories but no definitive reason as to why bowel cancer diagnoses are increasing.

The key takeaways:

• Early onset bowel cancer is when there is a diagnosis before the age of 50
• Deep dives into claims have shown that many claimants had no family history of bowel cancer or other disclosures related to digestive health 
• The TNM score of the bowel cancer diagnosis is essential in determining what the options for protection insurance will be

Next time I will be joined by Phil Jeynes, who will be sharing with us his story of a bowel cancer diagnosis and what life has been like for him since.  

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.