Medical Information Bureau

A new Medical Information Bureau or “M.I.B.” replaced the Rejection Exchange and responded to its faults. M.I.B. expanded the amount of data in circulation enormously: where companies had previously only shared cards for those individuals whom they chose to reject, they now shared cards for all individuals—even policyholders—burdened by any “impairment.” As a category, impairments belonged to insurance and as such avoided the “medical” problem: they included all characteristics generally considered a problem by medical directors, encompassing any class of risks, without worrying too much about medical tradition. If there were any questions, the Special Committee on Medical Information Bureau, which included a handful of doctors with Symonds among them and Rogers as chair, standardized the names and codes for all impairments.