“The ‘augmented human’ concept has become a reality. We carry health sensors on our wrist, and our Apple Watch is becoming our personal physician,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “These concepts are transforming the insurance industry.”
“Life is a risky business. Insurance is the business of extracting profit through the process of underwriting such risk,” Evans writes. “You already pay less for insurance if you are a safe driver. In the future, autonomous vehicles will extend these benefits even further with collision detection and accident prevention systems, minimizing risk.”
“I predicted long ago that as Apple refined the capabilities of the Apple Watch, it would get to a position where insurers would want to provide the device to customers,” Evans writes. “One of the first to do this was Vitality, which offered subscribers to its health or life insurance plans a discount Apple Watch. The watch works with the insurer’s tracking systems so that the more healthily active you are, the lower your insurance costs become. Now it seems we are about to see a similar deal from U.S. health insurance giant Aetna.”
Read more, including discussion of how Apple can lower rates for cybersecurity and other types of insurance, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last September:
Next we need a way for Apple Watch to detect smokers and charge them more, too. People who make the effort to be healthy, regardless of whether they actually are lucky enough to be healthy or not*, should pay less for their health insurance as they tax the system far less than those who are sedentary, obese and/or smoke. Just as life insurance costs more for those who live unhealthy lifestyles, their health insurance should cost more, too. (Life insurers should utilize Apple Watches in much the same way.)
*If a person is obese for reasons beyond a sedentary, unhealthy lifestyle, who is actively trying to be healthy as shown by their Apple Watch, but other conditions prevent fat loss (Hypothyroidism, Cushing’s syndrome, hormonal imbalances, Syndrome X, medications, etc.) they should get a lower rate than those who are simply leading sedentary, unhealthy lifestyles. Most cases of obesity are due to sedentary lifestyles and consuming more calories than required, not medical conditions.
Read more here.
SEE ALSO:
Apple and Aetna hold secret meetings to bring Apple Watch to the insurer’s 23 million members – August 14, 2017
In major win for Apple, Aetna becomes first insurance company to subsidize Apple Watch – September 27, 2016
New ‘SweatCoin’ iPhone app pays people to get fit – May 5, 2016
Why you’ll wear an Apple Watch to keep your job – March 14, 2016
Share your fitness data for an Apple Watch – or cash – March 2, 2016
Tim Cook hints Apple might build a health device – November 10, 2015
Apple should double down on Apple Watch’s health sensors, battery life, and waterproofing – October 2, 2015
Health insurer will charge more for lazy people, less for active people, based on Apple Watch sensors – September 18, 2015