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.

Comments

And so it begins

[YrWrstNtmr]

Not fit enough, eat too much red meat, drive too fast....sucks to be you.

tracked on wearable devices such as a Fitbit or Apple Watch
Yeah, THAT will go over well with my employer. Specifically, no smart watches in the building. AT all, ever.

Re:And so it begins

[taustin]

I take responsibility for my life by refusing to use tracking devices that communicate with companies that show no evidence of being able to spelldata security, much less actually implement it.

Particularly since, which the insurance company is bound by HIPPA laws, Fitbit is not.

This will last until the first breach, which is inevitable.

Re:And so it begins

[arth1]

Insurance is really just legalized gambling. Much like the tracks, not all horses are a good return on investment. No one wants to bet on a loser and the only reason to do so is because the payout is so high.

While true, what the insurance companies do now is like increasing the betting cost on low ranked horses without increasing the payout. The end result is that no one will go the races any more.

The more you track the customers and better predict their future, the less incentive there is for those customers to buy insurance. If the premiums could reflect your risk with 100% accuracy, you'd lose no matter what. The closer they get to accurate and farther from chaos, the more certain a loss will be, and the less incentive there is to participate.

Re:And so it begins

[omnichad]

3 years later...oh, actually eating red meat is good for you now. Here's a refund...just kidding. Just wait until you look at people's egg and butter/margarine consumption histories. Everything bad is good again and vice versa. Good old grains are currently the devil.

Re:And so it begins

[registrations_suck]

"This will last until the first breach, which is inevitable."

Um....yeah. Tell that to Equifax. Virtually no fucking penalties of any significance WHATSOEVER.

I just don't know about this

[OutOnARock]

Its like the auto insurance companies wanting to monitor everything I do in my car.

These should be things that one has to "opt-in" for.

I don't want the "discount" for being on an electronic leash......

There is just something about this that rubs me the wrong way.

Re:Premiums for spyware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Worse, they can now sell a very comprehensive data set on you, for much more than the discount you traded for.

As a bonus, when you decide you've had enough and cancel, it's a guarantee that data will be peddled other companies, who will then jack your premiums or refuse to insure you based on any indication of liability. Conveniently provided by your fitness data blob, that you traded for some stationary and a beach towel.

An example of stupid

[judoguy]

This is so dumb. A tracker would show me as terribly inactive because I can't wear one when I work out. I train and compete in judo and bjj. Hard training, fantastic exercise but you can't wear a damn bracelet or sensor while doing this.

A fitness tracker, like the stupid BMI calculation, would show me as layabout. Every actual measure of my health shows me to be in great health. I'm 65 and compete successfully at a world level in judo and bjj for my age. This is the classic case of how vs what. Look at the actual thing to be measured, not a poorly defined process that tries to look at how something MIGHT be measured. .

Re:Progressive Snapshot Hacks

[omnichad]

They're way more likely to pay the claim and drop you

Yeah...that won't work for the life insurance ones. Everyone gets dropped after the first claim.