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John Hancock Will Include Fitness Tracking In All Life Insurance Policies (venturebeat.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the cyborg-living dept.

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.

3 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And so it begins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This will last indefintely and become the new norm because it saves the greedy fucks money and enables even more data collection. Even better it forces those who wish to avoid such invasions of their lives to submit to them under the threat of medical bankruptcy if they refuse. Always expect greedy fucks to throw you under the bus in the pursuit of more coin, which is inevitable.

    FTFY.

    If you think this won't last, I invite you to look at the shitstorm that Equifax went through after they were hacked.... they'll be begging us for mercy.... any day now...... /sarcasm

    Even if they do get hacked, it will be swept under the rug as SOP, and you'll just loose even more control of your life same as always. Only now if you refuse you won't be able to afford a doctor without leaving the country. To which everyone else in the US will say: "And nothing of value was lost." Because they are all a bunch of fat and stupid sheep. Welcome to the first days of hell, we've all earned it.

  2. Re:And so it begins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Serious answer: life insurance is geared towards somebody who is a major provider for the family. The idea is that you're bringing in an income to support your family; if you die, the family no longer has that income, and hence could well hit hard times. Having life insurance provides a safety net, so that the rest of the family can continue on without having to worry about how to replace your income. (Think education, food, health, etc.)

    If you have children, it may well be worth the premium to know that they won't be hit with hard times if you aren't there. If you don't have children, it probably isn't worth so much. For me - single, no kids, no dependents to speak of - I haven't bothered taking out a life insurance policy; there's no point. If I had children, it might well be a different story.

    It might not make sense for your circumstances, and that's fine. But insurance is all about identifying and managing risk - pay a small amount on a regular basis, just in case you have a need for a much larger sum for some unexpected reason. If you can afford the hit of the larger sum, that small amount may not be worth it. If you can't, it may be.

  3. Re:And so it begins by rockmuelle · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not sure about the OPs case, but if you work around gear that’s sensitive to RF noise, you don’t want everyone brining their own transmitter to work. Even without a radio, electronics can interfere with sensitive equipment.