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

another corporate conspiracy ?

[swell]

Back around 1950 a major insurance company with an excellent reputation and very low premium rates set stringent requirements for its customers. Agents would fill in the forms with the usual information for clients; age, address, some medical background, etc. But potential clients had to qualify for the insurance policy. Like any company; older people would pay more for life insurance. People with accidents would pay more for auto insurance. But unlike other companies, many medium risk clients were simply not allowed to buy from this insurance company. At any price. And all approved clients got low premiums and were happy.

But they went beyond that. Agents had a secret checklist for every potential client. Things you might never guess could disqualify you for the money saving policy. One item that has stuck in my memory all this time is this: any potential client who enters the agent's office wearing boots is automatically disqualified.

Actuaries must have determined risk factors far beyond the norm. Perhaps they consulted psychologists and did unusual surveys to come up with odd criteria. Nevertheless, insurance companies take risks and need to protect themselves. If you want cheap insurance from a reliable company, expect to prove that you are worthy.