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> Health insurance will inevitably start to care about what you eat and how much you exercise. This is already happening, I met the founder of http://wesavvy.c

by bbrazil 11y ago

> Health insurance will inevitably start to care about what you eat and how much you exercise. This is already happening, I met the founder of http://wesavvy.com/ http://wesavvy.com/ recently which uses your phone to track exercise and reduce your insurance premium.

riskneural 11y ago
There is also Vitality UK from Prudential, and Beam - the wifi connected toothbrush. Telematics is all the rage in risk.
- sjg007 11y ago
  wifi connected toothbrush... wtf.. wow.
  - riskneural 11y ago
    I give you Beam. http://www.beam.dental/ http://www.beam.dental/ My understanding of the idea, which may be rubbish, runs as follows. 1. Find a way to identify good risks - in this case regular teeth brushers, or occupants of a crack-house that share a toothbrush. 2. Hence, offer lower premiums to low-risk customers than those companies that charge an average premium to average-risk customers. 3. Get a few customers together and make sure the shareholders of the polyopoly dental insurance mammoths get wind that you are thieving their customers. Panic sets in among the incumbents. Innovation!! Drat!! 4. Get bought out for a Unicorn bill before you even pay a dental claim or cover your costs.
zeidrich 11y ago
I think there's a big difference between these two things. When you use a phone to track exercise and reduce insurance premiums, that's a good thing, it encourages (or at least rewards) people who exercise and become healthier and might need less medical care. When you use social networks to track and monitor who your friends are in order to approve you for credit, that causes a different set of rewards and incentives. It rewards you for choosing who you are willing to be friends with based on their creditworthiness. It punishes people who have associations with people with poor credit. It essentially keeps good people down too. If you are a role model in your group of peers. If you're the guy out of your group of friends who got an education and got a steady job. If you pay your bills and don't carry debt, and you want to buy a house and have the money and responsibility to do so, you should be allowed to. When you do that, it shows those friends what you can do, and it allows you to move forward. On the other hand, if you get an education, get a job, pay your bills, and don't carry debt, but when you go to buy a house your mortgage application is denied simply because you have some friends who are struggling on facebook, what is the impact of that? It just causes you to stop moving up. Maybe it discourages you. Maybe it makes you realize that the world doesn't really want you to be better than what your friends have become. What the problem is has less to do with being judged by your actions, but rather being judged by the actions of those you associate with.

by bbrazil 11y ago

riskneural 11y ago

There is also Vitality UK from Prudential, and Beam - the wifi connected toothbrush. Telematics is all the rage in risk.

sjg007 11y ago
wifi connected toothbrush... wtf.. wow.
- riskneural 11y ago
  I give you Beam. http://www.beam.dental/ http://www.beam.dental/ My understanding of the idea, which may be rubbish, runs as follows. 1. Find a way to identify good risks - in this case regular teeth brushers, or occupants of a crack-house that share a toothbrush. 2. Hence, offer lower premiums to low-risk customers than those companies that charge an average premium to average-risk customers. 3. Get a few customers together and make sure the shareholders of the polyopoly dental insurance mammoths get wind that you are thieving their customers. Panic sets in among the incumbents. Innovation!! Drat!! 4. Get bought out for a Unicorn bill before you even pay a dental claim or cover your costs.

zeidrich 11y ago

I think there's a big difference between these two things. When you use a phone to track exercise and reduce insurance premiums, that's a good thing, it encourages (or at least rewards) people who exercise and become healthier and might need less medical care. When you use social networks to track and monitor who your friends are in order to approve you for credit, that causes a different set of rewards and incentives. It rewards you for choosing who you are willing to be friends with based on their creditworthiness. It punishes people who have associations with people with poor credit. It essentially keeps good people down too. If you are a role model in your group of peers. If you're the guy out of your group of friends who got an education and got a steady job. If you pay your bills and don't carry debt, and you want to buy a house and have the money and responsibility to do so, you should be allowed to. When you do that, it shows those friends what you can do, and it allows you to move forward. On the other hand, if you get an education, get a job, pay your bills, and don't carry debt, but when you go to buy a house your mortgage application is denied simply because you have some friends who are struggling on facebook, what is the impact of that? It just causes you to stop moving up. Maybe it discourages you. Maybe it makes you realize that the world doesn't really want you to be better than what your friends have become. What the problem is has less to do with being judged by your actions, but rather being judged by the actions of those you associate with.