Unknown. While there is speculation that the two may be comparable, I don't believe there has been any larger study comparing the two. This is something new that has only been talked about for a short period of time. Many pathology reports still do not call out growth phase.
As for insurance companies, they won't care. They use staging, and until something like growth phase is called out in the staging parameters lumping radial growth phase with melanoma in situ, they will ignore this. They will see depth and stage IA, not radial growth phase. Insurance companies want clear delineations and they use stage as their standard. I'm not even sure how much they factor in between stage IA and IB, they may just look at it as all stage I. (That comment comes from some insurance questions I've had to answer in the past in regards to my primaries).
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