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John Hancock Will Include Fitness Tracking In All Life Insurance Policies (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: John Hancock, one of the oldest and largest North American life insurers, will stop underwriting traditional life insurance and instead sell only interactive policies that track fitness and health data through wearable devices and smartphones, the company said on Wednesday. The move by the 156-year-old insurer, owned by Canada's Manulife Financial, marks a major shift for the company, which unveiled its first interactive life insurance policy in 2015. It is now applying the model across all of its life coverage. Policyholders score premium discounts for hitting exercise targets tracked on wearable devices such as a Fitbit or Apple Watch and get gift cards for retail stores and other perks by logging their workouts and healthy food purchases in an app. In theory, everybody wins, as policyholders are incentivized to adopt healthy habits and insurance companies collect more premiums and pay less in claims if customers live longer.
a friend of mine mentioned that when he wears his fitbit on his right hand and plays his ukulele, his recorded activity level goes through the roof. so getting those insurance discounts while sitting on your couch will be easy. ditto for posted food choices. when the company figures that out their next move will be to become big brother.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- A.E.
Life insurance has never made any sense to me.
I am alive, and healthy, and can enjoy life. So why should I give up money now, so that I can have more when I am dead?
Also, why would I want my wife to think I am worth more dead than alive?
With that kind of logic, she probably already does.