Maintaining your health and fitness throughout life is tough, and the incentives for doing so don't compare to the instant gratification of grabbing a chocolate bar and flopping on a couch to watch an entire boxset. But what if staying healthy saved you money and earned discounts and cheap gadgets? That's what John Hancock is offering with its revamped life insurance policies.
The 156-year-old insurance company decided that all life insurance policies it offers going forward will require the policyholder to use a fitness tracker to ensure they are maintining a healthy lifestyle.
The traditional life insurance policy is gone, replaced with a policy linked to a wellness solution called Vitality offered by the Vitality Group. The idea here is that both the customer and the insurance company benefit from encouraging a healthy lifestyle. The policyholder is encouraged to be healthier in return for smaller premiums, rewards, and better health. John Hancock gets customers who should live longer and suffer less expensive ailments.
Marianne Harrison, John Hancock president and CEO, explained that "We fundamentally believe life insurers should care about how long and well their customers live. With this decision, we are proud to become the only US life insurance company to fully embrace behavioral-based wellness and leave the old way of doing business behind."
Vitality has been used by John Hancock since 2015, but it's only now becoming a part of all policies offered. That's based on the feedback gathered from Vitality policyholders, which showed they lived up to 21 years longer than the rest of the insured population and generated 30 percent less in hospitalization costs. Details are vague, but it appears you'll link your fitness-tracker data through Vitality.
Two John Hancock Vitality Life Insurance options will be offered: Vitality Go and Vitality Plus. Vitality Go doesn't cost any extra, but tracks your health and rewards hitting certain goals by offering discounts on Fitbit, Garmin, and Polar fitness devices, as well as discounts at Amazon and REI. There's also a free subscription to Tufts Health and Nutrition Letter.
Vitality Plus is where the real savings are, but it costs an extra $2 per month. In return, you can cut up to 15 percent from your annual life insurance premiums, get an Apple Watch for just $25, a free Fitbit Alta, an Amazon Prime membership (coming soon), and a wide range of other discount offers, including up to $600 of savings in HealthyFood grocery store purchases.
You can view a full comparison of Vitality Go and Plus on the John Hancock website. Both programs will roll out for existing policy holders starting next year.
Fitbit is also seeing the benefits of adopting a health platform to sit alongside its products. Yesterday, the wearable tech company announced Fitbit Care, which combines fitness trackers, health coaching, and digital interventions through a new Fitbit Plus app. The aim is to "improve wellness, disease management and prevention."
Fitbit Care is aimed at the enterprise and will be offered through the company's corporate-focused Fitbit Health Solutions. Health and well-being companies are expected to adopt it for their customers, while individual companies can sign up and offer a health solution for their employees.
It seems as though the importance of staying fit and healthy has reached a point where it's becoming a standard feature of our daily lives whether we like it or not. Don't stop enjoying the occasional chocolate bar and boxset, though.