9 ms·

Strap on the Fitbit: John Hancock to sell only interactive life insurance

51 points by smacktoward 8y ago

saagarjha 8y ago
As much as I’d like everyone to use a wearable health/fitness tracker; I’m not sure I’d like insurers to get everyone to do it and collect everyone’s health data. Isn’t that the classic scenario of data collection overreach?
- Fnoord 8y ago
  You are absolutely right but the problem started with the company selling the tracker [1]. The original reason why wearables and health trackers work in the cloud is because they are tiny and don't muster the resources to have everything within the device; hence thin client. However, smartphones work reasonably enough to have the data hosted there. Convenience of convergence? Then why isn't the data stored with zero knowledge principle? With smart speakers it seems the same story. Why not host an offline Wikipedia, have speech analysis, and have the device work offline 24/7 as long as its killswitch is disabled? Furthermore, what we need is a standard to self-host (such as Yunohost. OTOH, many homes are worse secured than clouds. [1] We need legislation to make the practices illegal, or hold these people accountable, not in the least in case of data breaches. That's just the top of the iceberg.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    I’d like to point out that not every tracker does this; Apple Watch being the most notable example.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Just have the tracker store the data locally and sync with your phone or computer via a cable or bluetooth. "The cloud" was never necessary unless you eventually want to monetize the data. In fact it doesn't make sense for the manufacturers to provide that infrastructure unless they plan on getting money out of it. It's not like servers come for free.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
    You see, the problem is that people universally accepted "the cloud". When Alexa first appeared it was beyond me why anyone would buy. Turns out Amazon's marketing worked so well it's now a standard household item in many homes. The constant calling home by all Android phones is another example - we learned how to live with it. Health data tracking seems just another tiny step. Until people revolt against this huge issue, there is no way things change as greed has no limits as history shown us.
chrisbolt 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027323
Xcelerate 8y ago
Once insurance companies can accurately predict everyone's risk and then proceed to charge each person accordingly, how is it insurance anymore? The whole point of insurance is to distribute risk evenly over a specific population. I think insurers should distinguish between controllable and non-controllable factors, and they should not be permitted to discriminate on the basis of non-controllable factors. For instance, if someone chooses to ride a motorcycle instead of drive a car, then there should be a premium for that policy. However, if someone is born with a genome that predisposes them to dying much sooner from a specific disease, they should be charged no more than anyone else, because you can't control your genetics. I doubt most companies would willingly take the initiative on this though... With regard to the article's point, not everyone is able to exercise effectively to keep themselves in shape. People with disabilities are not necessarily able to go for a run and should not be penalized financially for being unable to do so.
- Zarath 8y ago
  It is also to distribute cost over time. It may not be positive EV to buy accident insurance (insurance companies make money somehow), but people buy it because they can't handle one time costs that are very large.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Doing enough sports to make your fitness tracker happy is definitely a controllable risk factor for almost everybody. I'd expect people with disabilities that prevent them from exercising to pay higher life insurance premiums.
- herendin 8y ago
  >insurers should distinguish between controllable and non-controllable factors, and they should not be permitted to discriminate on the basis of non-controllable factors. For instance, if someone chooses to ride a motorcycle instead of drive a car, then there should be a premium for that policy. However, if someone is born with a genome that predisposes them to dying much sooner from a specific disease, they should be charged no more than anyone else, because you can't control your genetics. Risk-taking behavior, such as choosing to ride a motorcycle, can also be influenced by genetics[1]. How can insurers distinguish 'free will' from genetic disposition? [1]https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0042-6.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0042-6.pdf
exabrial 8y ago
I wish it wasn't illegal to do this for health insurance in the USA.
- ohazi 8y ago
  And I'm glad it is.
  - exabrial 8y ago
    Obesity is the #1 killer in America. Charging people more who are intentionally harming themselves with poor diet and bad exercise habits is both ethical and fair; to the people who are out of shape, and the people that are in shape [subsidizing the former's health costs].
    - neuralRiot 8y ago
      People who are "hurting themselves" are mostly in the lower income sectors, so is not just "gluttony" but the lack of resources including education about better diet choices. https://kevishere.com/2011/11/05/inequality-health-disparities-obesity/ https://kevishere.com/2011/11/05/inequality-health-dispariti...
    - jhayward 8y ago
      > Charging people more who are intentionally harming themselves with poor diet and bad exercise habits is both ethical and fair 0) Heart disease, not obesity, is the number one killer in america. There is not a particularly strong correlation (certainly not = 1.0) between heart disease and obesity, diet, or even exercise. 1) There is very, very little correlation between exercise and obesity. 2) The systemic origins of obesity are not well understood, certainly not well enough to declare "ethical and fair" any kind of punitive mechanisms. 3) Your argument appears to be steeped in Puritan ethics which are unsupportable given modern science and medicine about the nature of free will, how the biology and physiology of the mind affects heath outcomes, and even the effectiveness of punishment as a generator of "good" behavior.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
Vitality policyholders worldwide live 13 to 21 years longer than the rest of the insured population. I'm skeptical here. This data point suggests to me "Rich people who can afford cutting edge technology and who also probably have been well cared for their entire lives naturally live longer and are the early adopters of this type of insurance involving fitness trackers. From that, we are extrapolating that fitness trackers cause longevity." It's a tail wags the dog type inference. Also, when I was in insurance and they had a wellness benefit on policies, I was initially jazzed that they were moving in the right direction of promoting preventive medicine, yadda. Then I learned that the actual point of the wellness benefit was that it gave people a small payout annually and this improved customer retention. That's it. Actual welfare of the customer had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Disclaimer: I worked in insurance for over 5 years at a highly ethical company and ended up with a pretty negative opinion of the industry as a whole.
chopin 8y ago
How do they prevent "fraud"? If I was already a customer to whom they applied this one-sided, I'd happily put this on a simulator.
tomjen3 8y ago
I have a fitbit (and have owned several different models). You can easily score a lot "steps" by air-drumming, so it shouldn't be hard to make it look like you are very active. It would of course be pointless to have a fitbit if you cheat, so in practice it is going to be a small number of steps that miscalculated, so it is fairly accurate, but that changes once I get a bonus for hitting 10k steps.
sdrinf 8y ago
For future reference: this article, and specifically it's title is deliberately misleading to form the general impression of "mandatory tracking", so that they get clickthroughs. From the horse's mouth: | John Hancock Vitality Life Insurance now offers new and existing* customers two options to support and incentivize healthier choices, wherever they are in their wellness journey: | Vitality GO: Vitality GO will be offered on all life insurance policies, at no additional cost. With this basic 'be healthy' version of the program, consumers will have access to expert fitness and nutritional resources and personalized health goals through an easy-to-use app and website. And as they reach key milestones, their healthy activities will be rewarded with discounts at major brand outlets. | Vitality PLUS: For $2.00 a month 5, customers will receive all the benefits of the John Hancock Vitality Program, including savings of up to 15 percent on annual premiums and valuable rewards for the everyday things they do to stay healthy, like exercising, eating well and getting regular checkups. https://www.johnhancock.com/news/insurance/2018/09/john-hancock-leaves-traditional-life-insurance-model-behind-to-incentivize-longer--healthier-lives.html https://www.johnhancock.com/news/insurance/2018/09/john-hanc... Correct article title is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027323 "John Hancock will include fitness tracking in all life insurance policies". And with that, reuters.com enters into my HN blacklist.

51 points by smacktoward 8y ago

As much as I’d like everyone to use a wearable health/fitness tracker; I’m not sure I’d like insurers to get everyone to do it and collect everyone’s health data. Isn’t that the classic scenario of data collection overreach?

Fnoord 8y ago
You are absolutely right but the problem started with the company selling the tracker [1]. The original reason why wearables and health trackers work in the cloud is because they are tiny and don't muster the resources to have everything within the device; hence thin client. However, smartphones work reasonably enough to have the data hosted there. Convenience of convergence? Then why isn't the data stored with zero knowledge principle? With smart speakers it seems the same story. Why not host an offline Wikipedia, have speech analysis, and have the device work offline 24/7 as long as its killswitch is disabled? Furthermore, what we need is a standard to self-host (such as Yunohost. OTOH, many homes are worse secured than clouds. [1] We need legislation to make the practices illegal, or hold these people accountable, not in the least in case of data breaches. That's just the top of the iceberg.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  I’d like to point out that not every tracker does this; Apple Watch being the most notable example.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Just have the tracker store the data locally and sync with your phone or computer via a cable or bluetooth. "The cloud" was never necessary unless you eventually want to monetize the data. In fact it doesn't make sense for the manufacturers to provide that infrastructure unless they plan on getting money out of it. It's not like servers come for free.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  You see, the problem is that people universally accepted "the cloud". When Alexa first appeared it was beyond me why anyone would buy. Turns out Amazon's marketing worked so well it's now a standard household item in many homes. The constant calling home by all Android phones is another example - we learned how to live with it. Health data tracking seems just another tiny step. Until people revolt against this huge issue, there is no way things change as greed has no limits as history shown us.

chrisbolt 8y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027323

Xcelerate 8y ago

Once insurance companies can accurately predict everyone's risk and then proceed to charge each person accordingly, how is it insurance anymore? The whole point of insurance is to distribute risk evenly over a specific population. I think insurers should distinguish between controllable and non-controllable factors, and they should not be permitted to discriminate on the basis of non-controllable factors. For instance, if someone chooses to ride a motorcycle instead of drive a car, then there should be a premium for that policy. However, if someone is born with a genome that predisposes them to dying much sooner from a specific disease, they should be charged no more than anyone else, because you can't control your genetics. I doubt most companies would willingly take the initiative on this though... With regard to the article's point, not everyone is able to exercise effectively to keep themselves in shape. People with disabilities are not necessarily able to go for a run and should not be penalized financially for being unable to do so.

Zarath 8y ago
It is also to distribute cost over time. It may not be positive EV to buy accident insurance (insurance companies make money somehow), but people buy it because they can't handle one time costs that are very large.
adrianN 8y ago
Doing enough sports to make your fitness tracker happy is definitely a controllable risk factor for almost everybody. I'd expect people with disabilities that prevent them from exercising to pay higher life insurance premiums.
herendin 8y ago
>insurers should distinguish between controllable and non-controllable factors, and they should not be permitted to discriminate on the basis of non-controllable factors. For instance, if someone chooses to ride a motorcycle instead of drive a car, then there should be a premium for that policy. However, if someone is born with a genome that predisposes them to dying much sooner from a specific disease, they should be charged no more than anyone else, because you can't control your genetics. Risk-taking behavior, such as choosing to ride a motorcycle, can also be influenced by genetics[1]. How can insurers distinguish 'free will' from genetic disposition? [1]https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0042-6.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0042-6.pdf

exabrial 8y ago

I wish it wasn't illegal to do this for health insurance in the USA.

ohazi 8y ago
And I'm glad it is.
- exabrial 8y ago
  Obesity is the #1 killer in America. Charging people more who are intentionally harming themselves with poor diet and bad exercise habits is both ethical and fair; to the people who are out of shape, and the people that are in shape [subsidizing the former's health costs].
  - neuralRiot 8y ago
    People who are "hurting themselves" are mostly in the lower income sectors, so is not just "gluttony" but the lack of resources including education about better diet choices. https://kevishere.com/2011/11/05/inequality-health-disparities-obesity/ https://kevishere.com/2011/11/05/inequality-health-dispariti...
  - jhayward 8y ago
    > Charging people more who are intentionally harming themselves with poor diet and bad exercise habits is both ethical and fair 0) Heart disease, not obesity, is the number one killer in america. There is not a particularly strong correlation (certainly not = 1.0) between heart disease and obesity, diet, or even exercise. 1) There is very, very little correlation between exercise and obesity. 2) The systemic origins of obesity are not well understood, certainly not well enough to declare "ethical and fair" any kind of punitive mechanisms. 3) Your argument appears to be steeped in Puritan ethics which are unsupportable given modern science and medicine about the nature of free will, how the biology and physiology of the mind affects heath outcomes, and even the effectiveness of punishment as a generator of "good" behavior.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

Vitality policyholders worldwide live 13 to 21 years longer than the rest of the insured population. I'm skeptical here. This data point suggests to me "Rich people who can afford cutting edge technology and who also probably have been well cared for their entire lives naturally live longer and are the early adopters of this type of insurance involving fitness trackers. From that, we are extrapolating that fitness trackers cause longevity." It's a tail wags the dog type inference. Also, when I was in insurance and they had a wellness benefit on policies, I was initially jazzed that they were moving in the right direction of promoting preventive medicine, yadda. Then I learned that the actual point of the wellness benefit was that it gave people a small payout annually and this improved customer retention. That's it. Actual welfare of the customer had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Disclaimer: I worked in insurance for over 5 years at a highly ethical company and ended up with a pretty negative opinion of the industry as a whole.

chopin 8y ago

How do they prevent "fraud"? If I was already a customer to whom they applied this one-sided, I'd happily put this on a simulator.

tomjen3 8y ago

I have a fitbit (and have owned several different models). You can easily score a lot "steps" by air-drumming, so it shouldn't be hard to make it look like you are very active. It would of course be pointless to have a fitbit if you cheat, so in practice it is going to be a small number of steps that miscalculated, so it is fairly accurate, but that changes once I get a bonus for hitting 10k steps.

sdrinf 8y ago

For future reference: this article, and specifically it's title is deliberately misleading to form the general impression of "mandatory tracking", so that they get clickthroughs. From the horse's mouth: | John Hancock Vitality Life Insurance now offers new and existing* customers two options to support and incentivize healthier choices, wherever they are in their wellness journey: | Vitality GO: Vitality GO will be offered on all life insurance policies, at no additional cost. With this basic 'be healthy' version of the program, consumers will have access to expert fitness and nutritional resources and personalized health goals through an easy-to-use app and website. And as they reach key milestones, their healthy activities will be rewarded with discounts at major brand outlets. | Vitality PLUS: For $2.00 a month 5, customers will receive all the benefits of the John Hancock Vitality Program, including savings of up to 15 percent on annual premiums and valuable rewards for the everyday things they do to stay healthy, like exercising, eating well and getting regular checkups. https://www.johnhancock.com/news/insurance/2018/09/john-hancock-leaves-traditional-life-insurance-model-behind-to-incentivize-longer--healthier-lives.html https://www.johnhancock.com/news/insurance/2018/09/john-hanc... Correct article title is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027323 "John Hancock will include fitness tracking in all life insurance policies". And with that, reuters.com enters into my HN blacklist.