You Can Read the GP Report Before It Is Sent

Yes — you can see your GP's report before it goes to the insurer. When a life insurer wants a medical report from the doctor who has treated you, you have a legal right to read it first, to point out anything factually wrong, and to ask for material that has no business being there to be taken out. The right is old, it is rarely used, and it is one of the few genuinely powerful cards an applicant holds. It comes from the Access to Medical Reports Act 1988, and almost nobody exercises it because almost nobody is told it exists.

The reason it matters is simple. An underwriter often decides less on your own answers than on what your GP writes, and a GP report is written quickly, from notes that may be years old and occasionally wrong. A single mis-recorded diagnosis, or a line about a relative that does not belong on your file, can change the terms you are offered. Seeing the report before it is sent is your chance to catch that while it can still be fixed, rather than arguing about it after a decision has landed.

This page sets out how the right works in practice: when to ask, what you can change, what you cannot, and the specific case that matters most in this corner of the subject — a predictive genetic result that the rules say an insurer should never have seen at all.

Where the right comes from

The Access to Medical Reports Act 1988 governs any medical report prepared for insurance or employment purposes by a doctor who "is or has been responsible for the clinical care" of the person concerned. In plain terms, that means your GP, or a hospital doctor who has treated you — the people whose notes an insurer actually wants. The Act gives you rights over that report before and after it is supplied, and the insurer cannot lawfully sidestep them.

It is worth reading the Act itself if you want the precise wording, because it is short and unusually readable for a statute. The key sections cover your right of access before the report is sent, your right to ask for corrections, and the narrow grounds on which a doctor may hold part of it back.

Source: Access to Medical Reports Act 1988, published on legislation.gov.uk. The 21-day access period and the rights described here are set out in the Act.

The moment it happens: the consent form

Everything hinges on one step that goes by in a blur. Before an insurer can approach your doctor, it must tell you it intends to and obtain your consent — usually a tick-box and a signature buried in the application. That consent form is where you either claim your right to see the report or waive it, often without realising which you have done.

To keep the right, you must state, at that consent stage, that you wish to see the report before it is supplied. Say so clearly and in writing. Once you have, the doctor must not send the report until you have had the chance to see it. You then have 21 days from notifying the practice to arrange access; if you do not make contact within that window, the report can be released without you. So the two practical rules are: tick the box that reserves your right, and then actually chase the surgery, because the clock is short and the default is that the report goes.

You can see the report at the practice, or ask for a copy. The doctor is entitled to charge a reasonable fee for a copy, and to keep a copy on file, which you can ask to see for up to six months afterwards. None of this delays things by much if you move promptly; the delay people complain about usually comes from not chasing, not from the right itself.

What you can actually change

The right is not a veto over anything unflattering. It is narrower and more useful than that: it lets you deal with two specific problems.

The first is factual inaccuracy. If the report says you were diagnosed with a condition you were not, or records the wrong date, the wrong medication, or a test result that was never yours, you can ask the doctor to correct it. Medical notes contain more errors than people expect, and an underwriter reading "query angina, 2019" cannot tell whether that was a ruled-out worry or a real diagnosis unless the note is accurate. Getting it right before it is sent is far easier than unwinding a loading or a decline afterwards. If a report has already gone and a decision came back against you, that is a different and harder road, which we cover in what to do when the insurer wrote to your GP and then said no.

The second is irrelevant material. A report should answer the insurer's questions, not empty your file onto the desk. Information that is not relevant to what the insurer asked — including detail about third parties, and, crucially, a predictive genetic result — can be challenged and removed. If the doctor agrees your requested change is fair, they amend the report. If the doctor disagrees, you have a fallback: you may attach a short written statement of your own views, which must then travel with the report, so the underwriter at least sees your account alongside the doctor's.

The genetic result this right was made for

This is where the Act and the genetics rules meet, and where the right earns its place in this cluster. Under the Code on Genetic Testing and Insurance, insurers have agreed not to ask for or use a predictive genetic result — a test done on a healthy person to estimate future risk. But your GP notes do not organise themselves around the Code. A predictive result can sit in your record next to everything else, and a GP writing a report at speed may copy it across without thinking about whether it should be there.

The Access to Medical Reports Act is the practical mechanism that catches that. Because a predictive genetic result is exactly the kind of material the insurer should not see, you can ask for it to be left out of the report before it is sent. That keeps the protected result on the right side of the line while the disclosable parts of your history go through normally. Knowing which of your results is protected in the first place is the companion question, and we work through it case by case in the two definitions of a family history of cancer and in the wider distinction between predictive and diagnostic testing. For directors and higher earners, whether cover has quietly crossed the one threshold where a genetic result can be asked about is set out in how a relevant life policy and personal cover stack towards £500,000.

Source: Code on Genetic Testing and Insurance, HM Government and the Association of British Insurers, published on gov.uk. Only a predictive Huntington's disease result may be asked about, and only above £500,000 of life cover.

The limits of the right

Three limits are worth knowing, so you do not rely on a protection that does not apply.

First, the Act covers a report from a doctor who has treated you. It does not cover an independent medical examination — where the insurer sends you to a doctor you have never seen, purely to assess you for the policy. That report is produced under different arrangements, so do not assume the same pre-sending access applies.

Second, a doctor may withhold part of a report from you in limited circumstances: where, in the doctor's opinion, showing it to you would be likely to cause serious harm to your physical or mental health, or where it would reveal information about another person who has not consented. These are meant to be narrow exceptions, not a routine block, and the rest of the report still comes to you.

Third, you can refuse consent for the report to be supplied at all — but that is a real decision with a real cost. An insurer faced with a refused GP report will usually be unable to proceed and may postpone or decline. Refusing consent is a tool for an extreme case, not a way to hide ordinary history. Insurers can also see certain other information through their own checks, and it is worth understanding the boundaries of that, which we cover in what a life insurer can and cannot see about a criminal record.

Your separate data-protection rights

The 1988 Act is not the only route to your own records. Under data-protection law you can make a subject access request to see the health data an organisation holds about you, entirely separately from any insurance application, and the Information Commissioner's Office explains how that works. The two rights do different jobs: the subject access request lets you inspect what is held; the Access to Medical Reports Act lets you intervene in a specific report before it leaves the surgery. For an insurance application, the second is the sharper instrument, because timing is everything — a correction made before the report is sent saves an argument that is far harder to win once a decision is on paper.

If you would rather understand the whole landscape of what insurers ask, why, and how family history fits into it before you apply, our guide to family history, inherited risk and the odds gathers it together, and when you are ready to compare terms you can get life insurance quotes through an FCA-authorised broker.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The Access to Medical Reports Act 1988 applies across Great Britain, so the position in Scotland is the same as in England and Wales: you can reserve the right to see a treating doctor's insurance report, correct factual errors, and ask for irrelevant material to be removed. Northern Ireland is the exception, and it is not that the right is missing — it is that it comes from separate legislation, the Access to Personal Files and Medical Reports (Northern Ireland) Order 1991, which provides an equivalent right. Wherever you are, the practical advice is identical: reserve the right when you consent, then chase the practice within the time allowed.

Frequently asked questions

Can I see my GP's report before it goes to the insurer?

Yes. The Access to Medical Reports Act 1988 gives you the right to see a report prepared for insurance or employment purposes by a doctor who has treated you, before it is sent, provided you say so when you give consent. Northern Ireland provides an equivalent right under a 1991 Order. You must reserve the right at the consent stage rather than after.

How long do I have to read it?

You have 21 days from telling the doctor that you want to see the report in which to arrange access. If you do not contact the practice within that time, the report can be sent without you seeing it. Say clearly at the consent stage that you wish to see it, and then chase the surgery promptly, because the default is that the report goes.

What can I ask to be changed?

Anything factually inaccurate, and material irrelevant to the insurer's questions, including a predictive genetic result that the Code says should not be disclosed. If the doctor will not amend it, you may attach a written statement of your own views to the report, or refuse consent for it to be sent — though refusing consent will usually stop the application from proceeding.