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Apple in Talks with Insurance Companies Over HealthKit Partnership

16 points by elie_CH 12y ago

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
At first, I thought they were partnering with Heathkit; I want my Apple Hero One robot!
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Same happened to me and for a second there Apple was regaining a bit of ground for me. Then I thought "I must be misreading that" and went back and sure enough, it had nothing to do with hardware and tinkering. Too bad, missed chance, though from a commercial perspective you can't fault them.
  - bsaul 12y ago
    Robotic is such an obvious path for Apple to go : integrated hardware & software with a strong design impact, requiring very advanced and optimised software running locally. I wonder if they're working on something like a personnal robot companion.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      I fear the times of Apple delivering hackable hardware are long gone and will not be back.
isomorphic 12y ago
This may save some people some money, but I'm not crazy about insurance-company OBD-II devices in my car, either. I suppose these technological tattletales will resign us to a future where we're either paying a premium for "bad" behavior (bad to an insurance company, anyway), or for privacy. I await the lawsuits to expose insurance-company pricing models, when people figure out the industry isn't using the stated attributes for punitive pricing, because those attributes do not, in fact, correlate to claims. (Note that I'm not saying the insurance industry won't very quickly figure out which signals result in claims; I'm saying they won't reveal what those signals are.)
- learc83 12y ago
  >I'm saying they won't reveal what those signals are. I think they will if those signals are under the driver's control, because insurance companies want fewer accidents. They'd gladly trade higher premiums for fewer accidents--they do it all the time when they offer incentives for driver training courses. If they could send out a report that says something like the following, they'd do it in a heart beat. "You take a relatively dangerous route to work every morning. If you switch to this alternate, safer route, you'll save $25 a month on your premium."
  - lucaspiller 12y ago
    You make that sound like a bad thing, but as a driver I'd be happy if I could get this data. I want driving to be safer too :-)
    - learc83 12y ago
      >You make that sound like a bad thing I definitely didn't intend to.
SixSigma 12y ago
In other news : How to connect your HealthKit to a motorised Stationary Bicycle to make it look like you do a spinning class every day.
fbomb 12y ago
Damn! I got a little excited when I read it as HeathKit!

16 points by elie_CH 12y ago

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

At first, I thought they were partnering with Heathkit; I want my Apple Hero One robot!

jacquesm 12y ago
Same happened to me and for a second there Apple was regaining a bit of ground for me. Then I thought "I must be misreading that" and went back and sure enough, it had nothing to do with hardware and tinkering. Too bad, missed chance, though from a commercial perspective you can't fault them.
- bsaul 12y ago
  Robotic is such an obvious path for Apple to go : integrated hardware & software with a strong design impact, requiring very advanced and optimised software running locally. I wonder if they're working on something like a personnal robot companion.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    I fear the times of Apple delivering hackable hardware are long gone and will not be back.

isomorphic 12y ago

This may save some people some money, but I'm not crazy about insurance-company OBD-II devices in my car, either. I suppose these technological tattletales will resign us to a future where we're either paying a premium for "bad" behavior (bad to an insurance company, anyway), or for privacy. I await the lawsuits to expose insurance-company pricing models, when people figure out the industry isn't using the stated attributes for punitive pricing, because those attributes do not, in fact, correlate to claims. (Note that I'm not saying the insurance industry won't very quickly figure out which signals result in claims; I'm saying they won't reveal what those signals are.)

learc83 12y ago
>I'm saying they won't reveal what those signals are. I think they will if those signals are under the driver's control, because insurance companies want fewer accidents. They'd gladly trade higher premiums for fewer accidents--they do it all the time when they offer incentives for driver training courses. If they could send out a report that says something like the following, they'd do it in a heart beat. "You take a relatively dangerous route to work every morning. If you switch to this alternate, safer route, you'll save $25 a month on your premium."
- lucaspiller 12y ago
  You make that sound like a bad thing, but as a driver I'd be happy if I could get this data. I want driving to be safer too :-)
  - learc83 12y ago
    >You make that sound like a bad thing I definitely didn't intend to.

SixSigma 12y ago

In other news : How to connect your HealthKit to a motorised Stationary Bicycle to make it look like you do a spinning class every day.

fbomb 12y ago

Damn! I got a little excited when I read it as HeathKit!