Molyneaux Insurance
  • The Molyneaux Way
    • Trumps and Tricks Euchre Event
    • ClearPath™
    • Our Team
    • Privacy Policy
  • Business
    • Employee Benefits >
      • Education and Compliance
      • Share to Compare
    • Risk Management
    • Claims Management
  • Industries
    • Franchises and Associations
  • Personal
  • Contact Us
  • Careers
    • Open Positions
  • Blog
  • The Molyneaux Way
    • Trumps and Tricks Euchre Event
    • ClearPath™
    • Our Team
    • Privacy Policy
  • Business
    • Employee Benefits >
      • Education and Compliance
      • Share to Compare
    • Risk Management
    • Claims Management
  • Industries
    • Franchises and Associations
  • Personal
  • Contact Us
  • Careers
    • Open Positions
  • Blog

​Molyneaux ​Blog

Wearable fitness trackers could affect your insurance

11/14/2018

 
Insurance and fitness trackers | Molyneaux Insurance
Wearable medical devices such as the Fitbit are making increasing inroads into all aspects of life. Corporate wellness programs are embracing them as a way to encourage activity. In some cases, incentives may be provided to employees who meet certain activity and other health targets.
​
Insurance companies are also getting more interested in collecting biometric data from customers via wearable medical devices and other forms of monitoring. For example, John Hancock now offers "interactive" life insurance policies, under which customers can submit to optional fitness and activity tracking via wearable devices and smartphones.
Their reasoning:
  • They can set a more accurate price on premiums.
  • They can avoid overcharging those with healthy habits who are at lower risk of a variety of medical conditions.
  • They can provide an incentive to existing policyholders to improve their health habits - lowering claim expenses for all policyholders in the risk pool.

Tracking is optional, but policyholders who participate, and who meet activity objectives as recorded on their devices, receive discounts on their insurance premiums. They also receive gift cards from participating merchants and other perks if they log their workouts via a mobile device app.

John Hancock announced this fall that all their future life insurance policies would feature this option.

Other insurers are not far behind: In addition to life insurance companies like John Hancock, medical, disability insurance and long-term care insurance carriers are all looking into leveraging this tech to control costs and inform pricing.

For example, Humana, a nationwide health insurance carrier, has launched the Go365 program that pays policyholders to complete verified workouts via the Medicare Silver Sneakers program, or by wearing an activity tracker.

United Healthcare's Motion program, marketed to employers who want to decrease their own health care expenditures, issues free trackers to employees and allows them to earn up to $4 per day in health reimbursement account contributions.

Even car insurers are getting into the act: Progressive allows customers with good driving habits to earn discounts by tracking their driving using a mobile app called Snapshot. On the other hand, those with poor or risky driving habits as documented by the app may see their premiums increased when their policy is renewed.

Potential downsides
But, the practice raises some important disadvantages and policy issues:
  • Non-participants will need to pay proportionately higher premiums, since healthier policyholders who receive discounts won't be contributing as much to the risk pool.
  • Privacy and consumer advocates have also raised concerns that insurers could potentially use the data to drop less profitable customers.
  • They also raise concerns that this data could be hacked or otherwise leaked or sold to third parties for a variety of marketing purposes to which the policy holders never consented.

The practice is still in its early stages. Insurers, regulators and legislators are looking carefully at how to balance the sometimes competing priorities of affordability, efficiency, privacy and the accessibility of insurance. And industry analysts are concerned that some customers may engage in fraud by having someone else use their Fitbits.
​
Should you participate? That's a personal decision. You will have to decide for yourself whether the discounts and perks outweigh your privacy and security concerns.

Comments are closed.

    Categories

    All
    COVID 19
    Cyber Security
    Directors And Officers
    Employee Benefits
    News
    Personal Insurance
    Property And Casualty
    Risk Management
    Trumps & Tricks
    Wellness
    Workers Compensation

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017

Company

About Us
Our Team
​Trumps & Tricks
Testimonials
Careers
​News
Privacy Policy

Services

​Commercial Insurance
Risk Management
Employee Benefits
Group Health Insurance

Retirement Benefits
​Personal Insurance

Industry Specialization

Contact Molyneaux

​​5025 Utica Ridge Road
Suite 100
Davenport, IA 52807
​101 East Main Street
​
Suite 202
Galesburg, IL 61401
Phone: 563-324-1011 
Toll Free: 800-713-6930

Partner Agencies

LMC Insurance & Risk Management Logo
Independent Insurance Services Logo
Molyneaux Logo
The Friedman Group Logo
© COPYRIGHT 2020 Molyneaux Insurance