Posted on 09/20/2018 12:34:06 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
John Hancock, one of the oldest and largest North American life insurers, will stop underwriting traditional life insurance and instead sell only interactive policies that track fitness and health data through wearable devices and smartphones, the company said on Wednesday.
The move by the 156-year-old insurer, owned by Canada's Manulife Financial Corp, marks a major shift for the company, which unveiled its first interactive life insurance policy in 2015. It is now applying the model across all of its life coverage.
Interactive life insurance, pioneered by John Hancock's partner the Vitality Group, is already well-established in South Africa and Britain and is becoming more widespread in the United States.
Policyholders score premium discounts for hitting exercise targets tracked on wearable devices such as a Fitbit or Apple Watch and get gift cards for retail stores and other perks by logging their workouts and healthy food purchases in an app.
In theory, everybody wins, as policyholders are incentivized to adopt healthy habits and insurance companies collect more premiums and pay less in claims if customers live longer.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
My first wife worked as a recruiter for them, a job I got for her. They’re actually one of the better insurance companies. If they are doing this soon everyone will.
Boy, good thing irony is completely lost on Leftists and Police State Tyrants, otherwise, someone might have a laugh at their expense!
CORRECTION (Sept. 20, 2018, 3:45 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misstated in a headline a new policy from life insurer John Hancock. It will allow customers to opt in to wearing health trackers on all life insurance policies, not require them to wear them.
So, you can do this and likely pay lower premiums, or tell JH kiss off and pay more money.
I don't like it, but it does make sense. If you want to call the tune, you need to pay the piper.
All I needed to read to understand this totalitarian move.
Good.
Why should I subsidize some junk food eating couch potato?
It makes no more sense for me to be charged the same as a person who smokes and is 75 pounds overweight, consumes garbage that they didn’t even cook from scratch with local ingredients and couldn’t be bothered to run at least 5K this morning or otherwise work out?
Insurance should cover the things that randomly happen to one, that they have no control over. Solo accidents due to texting, driving while drunk or high, burning your house down falling asleep with a cig- none of that should be covered, either. ONLY things that happen despite one’s best efforts to avoid them.
Three quarters of the guys my age are 50+ pounds overweight, couldn’t do 100 push-ups to save their life, have bee told they are diabetic or pre-diabetic and haven’t changed a damn thing- *I* should pay anything near the same rates?
Insurance rates should reflect risk that can’t be avoided, not subsidize people who can’t haul their ass to the gym.
Cranky old fart who got up an ran this morning and had a 200 calorie veggie lunch :-)
They probably already do all that to rank and file employees. First, they offer a premium discount for employee insurance. When that doesn’t get enough participation, they make it mandatory. Many big corporations treat their help that way. Not just as regards to insurance, either. Everything, except the big shots perks and salaries, is about the bottom line. Employees are simply assets or tools to make them money. With rare exceptions, they treat their help as poorly as they can get away with.
This is right up there with leaving your RV on cruise control and gojng back for a sandwich.
“Earn points for making healthy choices — the more points you earn, the more your Vitality Status will increase. Every year on your policy anniversary, you may receive premium savings depending upon the points you accumulated and the status you achieved. Those savings can continue for the life of your policy if you lead a healthy lifestyle. In addition, if you achieve Gold or Platinum Status in any year, the premium you pay in your next policy year will decrease compared to the amount you pay in the current policy year.”
First of all there is no way to track proper food consumption. You can exercise all day except when you eat two big macs, deep fried fries, and a full soda, twice a day and then pizza for dinner with beer. Ain’t no exercise in the world that will cover a 5 to 8 thousand calorie day, day after day. Second, they do not say what happens if you don’t reach “their” goals only that if you do, next years premiums will be lower. They don’t say you can be tossed out on your ear for lack of success.
They tried this in California with car insurance and the insurance companies went to policies normally set to assigned risk or left the state. Furthermore, not everyone is capable of a continual exercise program. Do they charge them more? That’ll go to court.
Canadian companies can try this where they have a captive audience and in south Africa or parts of Europe where people are uneducated about the free market. But the bottom line is still the magic and when people learn they will have to accomplish something to get the “so called” great savings through perks, they’ll head for traditional insurance companies and those that stay will be so small, Hancock won’t be able to afford postage stamps.
rwood
Fooled em!
I outlived the need for life insurance! (hmmm.....guess that means I never needed it!(
John Hancock was an Anti-Federalist and opposed the constitution.
I am with TR in thinking... I have 4 dogs. Little ones are SUPER active, running and chasing each other all day.
ain’t it grand...... think 90 or maybe 95
It would have to be a big dog. Little dogs heart rate would send a bad message. And one that doesn’t bark in case they are listening.
But what is considered healthy changes back and forth. There are some basic rules but remember that eating eggs was bad, same with red meat. And on the other side, they are pushing grains which are high in carbs which are killing folks. The food pyramid is a joke.
a faster heart rate might do me some good...
and, i bark at my dogs... especially the chatty one. she thinks it is a game, she even plays it with neighbors.
Bark... waits for you to bark back.
a faster heart rate might do me some good...
and, i bark at my dogs... especially the chatty one. she thinks it is a game, she even plays it with neighbors.
Bark... waits for you to bark back.
Sell John Hancock stock short!
oh, and.. i have 2 little mixes... and two basset hounds... they would get me in so much trouble.
This will fail, but they don’t know it. Their heads are up their a$$es.
The numbers captured by a device attached to the wrist do not describe the state of health of a person.
Big Brother Insurance. Any data transmitted from these devices goes to Big Government Brother just as fast as it goes to Hanover. Anyone who agrees to this deal is Sheep.
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