Today, Apple smartwatches are being flaunted as a style statement, but in fact, they are defining the way we interact with ourselves and the world around us.
Corporates in the health, fitness and insurance industry are waking up to the massive potential of wearable tech and its positive impact on life and general insurance premium.
A Real Game-changer for Insurance
Insurance companies such as AXA, Esurance, Phoenix and John Hancock have introduced wearable technology for their customers. The tribe sure is growing. In this light, we examine how wearables are impacting insurance.
Prevention Over Reaction
A good number of diseases of the modern world—diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, etc. are associated with well, the modern lifestyle. These can be managed or prevented altogether with appropriate diet and exercise. Over the last couple of years, consumers have become savvy of measuring different aspects of their lifestyles including food intake, workout regimen and sleep quality to be able to make suitable modifications.
Few insurers are experimenting on the fringe to adopt consumer-generated wearables data by incentivizing insureds who are making changes in their physical activity and nutrition levels, thereby improving their own health. A celebratory trend, no doubt. However, it needs a greater push, so that wearables data becomes as mainstream if not more as data from upfront forms and cursory blood-urine tests.
Upfront vs. Continuous Learning
Presently, a majority of the data insurers collect from their customers is through static forms prior to issuing the policies. Either these forms are still paper-based, or are digitized ‘as-is’ with no intelligence built into them in. They are every bit as tedious and user unfriendly as their paper equivalents.
The other significant learning about the customers is through perfunctory blood-urine tests, the results of which are indeterminate as there are too many handlers between the collection of samples and the final analysis. Plus, some of the advanced tests required in certain cases can be invasive.
This is no endorsement to replace existing methods of collecting data with wearables altogether (there is a lacking as of now in terms of data validity). However, wearables combined with direct-to-consumer genetic tests will give rise to a robust data framework in the near future. When insurers start using wearables data, not only do they get a head start in using a dynamic form of data, but they also get more opportunities to learn about their insureds throughout the policy lifecycle. Carriers can dynamically adjust premium as per the real-time picture of an individual’s health.
Corporates To Go All In
An all-around healthy employee is a happy employee and corporates know this. What with an increasing number of them taking workplace satisfaction surveys seriously?
But here’s the surprise. Insurers, not employers are better placed to enable wellness initiatives. Imagine a wellness program driven by an insurer at the behest of a corporate. The insurance company can start the employees off with a non-invasive annual health test and a wearable device to monitor progress on test results in real-time. The non-invasive health tests can even be a pro-active test like higi—simple and accessible where users’ vital signs are captured on their own initiative and can even be shared on social media.
Wellness presents an opportunity like never before for insurers to build their brand loyalty in a market that is highly commoditized and fragmented. It also allows for products to be bundled together. For example, offering customers a hybrid option of life and health insurance policy.
