TFM: mhealth lightening the load for insurers

The vital signs for health insurers are not good. Global financial services leader (and, incidentally, a GB Powerlifting competitor) Daryl Wilkinson, believes connected communities are key to improving outcomes.

Globally, insurers are noticing the allure of mhealth – mobile health – to change the conversation from risk and loss to a more engaging one about health for the customer.

Particularly in Asia, insurance mhealth propositions such as AIA’s Vitality and Manulife’s MOVE are centred on physical activity tracking. In these programmes, insurers provide discounts on renewal premiums and improve coverage if customers achieve activity-based goals, such as the number of steps taken. The opportunity is greater when mhealth is addressed more holistically by including features that are important to varied customer segments, such as emotional wellbeing, medication management and emergency response management.

These propositions come as the use of mobile tracking devices for general medical surveillance is reported to be on the rise, as is the level of investment in accurate measuring devices.

In 2015, Google launched a wristband with the lofty claim that it could monitor vital signs to such a degree of accuracy that it would be suitable for use in clinical trials. Since then, several such devices have hit the shelves for general consumption. Ava, a fertility tracking bracelet for women is a good example.

Ava’s sensors collect data on nine different physiological parameters and, using its algorithm, then detects the time when they are most likely to conceive.

Online health support services, such as Babylon, are giving patients instant access to doctors by email or video link, removing the need to visit a local GP in person. Patients simply log in to a virtual waiting room online and wait until the doctor is ready to see them.

The ever-increasing pressures on GPs to provide services to more people, more effectively, means that video consultations are likely to penetrate the public health service. And with technology enabling remote access to doctors, the natural next step is the remote download of your vital signs for analysis by the doctor on screen for a more thorough online consultation. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI)  health apps such as Ada, which remove the need for initial consultations with doctors, are also seeing significant traction. Ada first understands the patient by asking questions on personal attributes, medical history and current symptoms. It then applies its AI engine to the information to suggest the right medical care.

Data, data, everywhere

Accurate monitoring devices can take some of the guesswork out of health issues. In appointments of the future, instead of the doctor asking how you have been, you might share your data set and a system could generate a report on the fly that provides an instant and comprehensive review of your current health. Taken further, if this data was to be periodically fed into monitoring systems, your doctor could flag up issues before you have even noticed anything is wrong.

This preventative care could not only save insurance companies significant sums of money, it could also help us to live much healthier lives with less disruption from sickness, and relieve pressure on remedial health services that area already struggling.

With the advantages of mhealth devices and apps becoming increasingly apparent, businesses are now looking to reap some of these benefits. Fitbit has previously revealed that the fastest growing area of its business is supplying companies with devices to monitor their employees’ health. It sounds creepy to some, but it is optional for employees and it provides employers with opportunities to monitor and support their wellbeing.

Using the data gained as a cost-saving tool for insurance policies, employers are turning to mhealth devices as a perk that benefits both them and their employees. Providing services such as Babylon as an employee benefit means that employees can deal with medical issues more flexibly and at times convenient to them. While this is great for reducing stress on employees, it also minimises lost working hours for employers. We can intuitively accept healthier and happy employees are more productive ones, too.

These trends present a fresh opportunity for life and health insurers to engage and distribute their products differently – online, via community-based models.

A healthy community

If research from PwC is to be believed, 44 per cent of insurance directors think that most insurance providers will not survive, at least not in their current form. I understand this pessimism:

• Industry return on equity has been flat and persistently low interest rates continue to depress returns
• Agent commissions and distribution costs, circa 60 per cent of a typical insurer’s overall operating costs, have ratcheted up at an average rate of five per cent since 2010
• The regulatory eye is turning to fixed fees, with many life insurers expecting a mandated change in pricing models
• Strategy is to move to direct and digital distribution channelscustomer needs. At the heart of this thinking are communities, specifically, digital health and fitness communities.

Several Insurers have started this journey, with John Hancock’s Vitality programme being one of the more mature schemes currently on offer. Unfortunately, many people may feel Vitality is now less about health and more about the free coffee. Could Yulife be the 2.0 reboot? In either case, both of them fall short in my opinion and the industry as a whole is still grappling with issues.

I see four challenges to overcome and an adaptive wellness proposition is the missing link:

1. Mixed customer reception for insurers’ well-known digital wellness programmes – customer delight is still elusive
2. Customers perceive that insurer solutions fall short when compared to a plethora of digital wellness apps and devices offered by startups
3. Most programmes focus only on lifestyle risk management and fail to focus on other areas of customer interest, such as disease risk management
4. Current digital wellness programmes are not defined with multiple customer personas in mind and address the millennials as one age group

Connecting customer value

My nearly 30 years in the health and fitness industry as a passionate contributor has taught me time and again that ‘cookie-cutter’ programmes for wellbeing do not work. Adherence eventually dissipates, no matter how many free (skinny) lattés you offer as rewards and incentives. Personalisation is required and this must adapt with the recipient’s needs over time.

A support network can also help with adherence and, given we are now living in the age of the Internet of Things, this couldn’t be easier to deliver.Dr Amy Redmond, who recently supported a healthcare technology review commissioned by the UK Secretary of State for Health, is involved in research and providing evidence about the ways in which technology may help to enhance the health of individuals. She says: “There is a clear need to address issues of inactivity and resultant poor health.
Technology-enabled interventions that offer greater incentive, encouragement and personalised wellness solutions may allow individuals to better manage and improve their overall health and fitness.

“Stress, poor diet, inactivity and poor mental health increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. As such, there is likely to be overlap between cardiovascular and emotional health, dietary, vital signs monitoring and mindfulness interventions.”

Today’s connected devices generate more data about our lifestyle and health than anyone could have predicted 10 years ago. But what’s in it for insurers? Connecting with customers via purposeful communities enables insurers to build more regular and meaningful engagement. In turn, these connected communities help insurers to harness data from devices that monitor vital signs, activity, nutrient consumption and sleep patterns for more precise underwriting and pricing while offering value-added fitness and lifestyle feedback.

To see how technology is enabling these support services to evolve is fascinating. Making decisions informed by it helps us and our families lead better lives. The information is at our fingertips. The question is, will insurers put their weight behind incentivising us and our employers to use it?

Daryl Wilkinson is recognised in the European Digital Financial Services ‘Power 50’ as one of the most innovative people in digital financial services in Europe. Outside the office, he helps working mums and dads to eat better, move more and live well. He competes in raw powerlifting with the GB Powerlifting Federation.

This article was published in The Fintech Finance Magazine: Issue #12, Page 84.