Traditionally, the insurance industry has treated people who look after their own health by rewarding them with standard premiums. Smoking, excess drinking and other poor self-care practices, however, attract a higher premium when assessing risk.

Our industry increasingly acknowledges the role people can take in protecting themselves through exercise, good diet and more. This applies, generally, for both those with no known health conditions, but also to those, that have a pre-existing condition. Inactive people have an increased risk of, for example, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, obesity and cancer. Excess weight impacts almost every aspect of health, from reproductive and respiratory function to memory and mood.

Through digital innovation and broader access to new data sets, life and health insurers are now incorporating far more sophisticated approaches to point of sale and ongoing assessment of risk into their business models.

hr | equarium

A look at Hannover Re’s insurtech innovation pool hr | equarium reveals a number of innovative companies that are helping consumers to monitor and look after their health. These range from DNA testing to enable educated lifestyle decisions based on one’s unique genetic profile, to sleep tracking apps offering support for stress and other mental health-related conditions including anxiety, trauma, eating disorders, mild depression and addiction.

LifeQ

The insurance industry is uniquely placed to play a driving role in shaping the health of policyholders. At Hannover Re Life & Health, we have teamed up with biometrics organisation LifeQ to offer our insurance partners and their customers the ability to take positive steps towards ageing well and long life.

Backed by medical experts and based on clinically validated research, LifeQ’s app goes beyond the scope of most wearable app-based health solutions to enable users to monitor key health indicators including fitness, activity levels, cardiovascular health and sleep hygiene. It uses data from LifeQ-enabled wearables to detect key physiological changes which might, for example, be indicators of a developing infection or even an underlying cardiovascular condition. By encouraging early preventative action, the tool creates awareness on relative risks, seeking to not only save lives but also enable better future quality of life. For insurers, the potential exists to use the data gleaned to:

  • Offer tips and access to professional advice when potential health problems are detected.
  • Incentivise proactive healthcare behaviour with personalised pricing and reward schemes, which also serves to reduce the cost of risk protection
  • Offer early – and continuous - screening of those at risk from certain chronic conditions
  • Improve the policy application process, avoiding the need for expensive and time consuming third party reports or medical tests

With digital data and health expertise playing an ever expanding role in the life and health insurance sectors our LifeQ partnership enables a health management capability that insurers can offer to their policyholders. Read more about LifeQ here or contact your local Hannover Re office for more information.

Vitality

At Hannover Re, we believe in supporting our business partners to encourage and reward healthy lifestyle practices as much as possible. A pioneer in this space has been in South Africa, where the insurer Discovery Life has been active in Vitality programmes for many decades and continues to drive the concept of shared value.

This insurance company has set up a network of partnerships with supermarkets, fitness studios, airlines, restaurants and many more organisations, enabling customers to, in effect, exchange good lifestyle choices for considerable discounts at partners.

As an example, this could mean that healthy food options in the consumer’s supermarket trolley count towards maintaining free gym membership. It’s win-win for the insurer, which benefits from lower claims and increased persistency and also for the end customer, who enjoys better health and substantial savings on expenses (including insurance!). In close cooperation with Hannover Re, this concept has been exported to the UK, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Latin America. Find out more about Vitality here.