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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.
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.
but if the public gets smart and demands that their data requires reimbursement for its use...
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.
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.
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.
The sad part is people will be ok with this. Fuck them, too.
What is this, a space mission where our vitals must be constantly monitored?
No tattle dongles on my car, no smart watch on my wrist. If the insurer balks, Iâ(TM)ll take my shit elsewhere. If my employer balks, Iâ(TM)ll look for. New job.
Fuck 5em, fuck 5em, fuck them, and may the inbred spawns of bacteria that came up with this idea and all ideas like it have an interesting life. I wish them a very interesting, quite educational life.
Good thing I have more years behind me than in front of me, if this is the direction the world is going I have no interest in partaking.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
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. .
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
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.
...omphaloskepsis often...
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.
This is really just a gimmick by the insurance company to make you think you are getting a better rate. The risk of death - especially for younger people - is really quite low. Even though exercise reduces that risk, it's hard to believe that it would make a meaningful difference in insurance rates (particularly because you don't really need life insurance when you are old). But, it gets them lot of attention and its customers think they are getting a great deal because they are into fitness.
Talking fitness trackers mandatory for life of health insurance. No mute button. But it will provide very helpful advice. Obey or pay more than you make for a premium. For example:
Jim, you are not exercising enough. Cotton picking is great exercise. We have provided a field ready to harvest. Instructions are uploaded to your Phon.
Now, pick that cotton Jim.......more........more.......pick faster.......come on! Put your back into it BOYYY!!!
Looking forward to the creative hacks people will come up with for these forced insurance trackers.
Well, this explains why I saw a guy jogging this morning with about twenty fitness tracking devices on his arms and legs.
I thought he was probably a student in the sports medicine program at the local university.
But I guess he was just outsourcing fitness training for a lot of folks who would rather pay him to wear their devices, than to jog themselves.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I've mentioned before, the real danger of a dystopian panopticon future comes from insurance companies, not governments.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
*Old man yells at cloud.*
I tend to rant.
Where I work we have a health plan set up with Virgin Pulse, and everyone is strongly encouraged to get trackers for #of steps etc.
Pretty much everyone has them, because hey - they're cool right? And it automatically uploads your info. Luckily for me, you are still able to manually enter your steps and other info - so I wrote a script I run every morning to go log into the site and enter them. Why would I even bother? Because they charge you a lot more for your policy if you don't. You have to hit a certain goal for the quarter or they penalize you.. whoops, I mean, you don't get the discount. And it is several hundred dollars.
But I REFUSE to be tagged and tracked like a wild animal, all for the sake of "fitness". Which is a total sham. The "nutrition advice" and pseudo-medical tips they constantly hammer you with on their site are garbage. I lie on the surveys, and tell them what they want to hear. Not because I eat garbage and don't want them to know, but because I know better than their one-size-fits-all advice. I know what I know through personal research, and listening to actual experts on these things. I have been at my ideal weight for 6 years, and the only "concern" with my health is high cholesterol - which I don't really know if it is a concern or not. I haven't tried to get a real lipid panel done because my insurance won't cover it. There are 5 indicators for metabolic syndrome, and my cholesterol is the only one that isn't perfect. Yet doctors will try to put me on statins - based on one overly generalized test that tells you nothing valuable. High cholesterol, in and of itself, tells you nothing about possible risks to your health. "any history of heart issues?" Yes, my father had 2 stints put in a couple of years ago. "ahh, I see... so we should put you on statins". Oh, by the way, my father has an absolutely normal lipid panel. So why do you want to prescribe statins to me again?
Our healthcare and insurance industries are abysmal. I went for a checkup once (required by the healthplan) and all was well. A couple of weeks later, I got a letter from my life insurance company that said I was required to enter rehab in order to keep my policy. I called my agent, who I knew pretty well, and he said he couldn't talk about it. I tried to call my doctor, and doctors don't talk to you. This went on for a few days, and finally I was a bit frantic and my life insurance guy said "your doctor indicated that you use drugs, so you need to attend rehab to keep your policy". I was LIVID. I left a VERY terse message at my doctor's office and did something that I hate - I threatened legal action if they did not contact me. I eventually found out that the medical assistant, who had done the whole "do you smoke... do you drink... " questions at the beginning of that visit had checked that I use marijuana. Which I do not. I still never found out why, but have to assume it was some mistake - why would I say I did? Anyway, I demanded that they send a letter to my insurance company to tell them it was a mistake on their part. Now... I don't tell my doctor anything. I answer all their stupid little questions the way they want me to, and I go about my life. What REALLY burns me about this is that it was my life insurance company (not my health insurance) that knew about this mistake - but because it was protected information, they couldn't actually tell me what was going on. It's an old word, but "cahoots" is about as perfect of a word that can be used to describe it.
My point is - don't play into these types of programs. It may seem easy, but it is such a slippery slope. It's only paranoid if they aren't out to get you - and these fuckers are out to get you! Not to mention that their data collection is only to benefit them, not you. If you think all the people who have those fitness trackers are getting healthier because of them... think again. Everyone is still the same. The overweight lady who wears her tracker and goes to the gym every day is still gaining wei
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Busy bodies want everyone to live, eat, breathe like THEY do, so now they are getting us use to having our heart rate, activity levels on our phones, watches for "your convenience", then the insurance companies will start using the data, as well as the government allowing or not allowing health care, once they end up taking over the health care industry in a few years. They are also getting us use to not paying "in cash" by using our phones, watches, of course, for your convenience. Once people ditch cash, they can just make it a law that you CANNOT use cash. Once THAT happens everything you do, everything you buy will be MONITORED. Tie health care into that, and then when you want to order a cheese burger, your card, tap, implanted under the skin chip will not be allowed, because you were too fat at your last mandated government checkup. Plus, if the government gets in trouble, like they did in Greece, just take the money from the banks. It's all just data anyway, no "cash" that you can hide. DON'T think it can't happen!