Objective: Provide a brief review of HIV history and determine the relative mortality of life insurance applicants who are HIV positive and how that has changed over time with advances in treatment.
Method: By use of the Social Security Death Master File and multivariate analysis, mortality of those HIV positive relative to those HIV negative was determined for life insurance applicants from 1991 to 2009.
Results: Relative mortality varied by type of testing (blood, urine or oral fluid) and by age, ranging from 320% at the oldest ages to over 1300% at the youngest ages for applicants with blood testing. Surprisingly, there was little change in relative risk among HIV-positive applicants over this period.
Conclusion: Relative risk for life insurance applicants who are HIV positive remains high despite advances in therapy.