Life insurer offers rewards for healthy lifestyle
Life insurance giant AIA will offer its 500,000 New Zealand customers freebies and discounts if they sign up to a programme that encourages them to live healthier lifestyles.
The Vitality rewards scheme is owned by a separate company, South African insurer Discovery, and gives people ‘‘points’’ if they complete various online health assessments and routine medical checks.
Points can also be earned by uploading exercise data from devices such as Fitbits and Apple Watches, and by taking flu vaccinations.
AIA New Zealand took in $717 million in premiums from customers in the year to June.
Chief executive Nick Stanhope said Vitality would be available to staff from June, before being rolled-out more widely.
Whether people got involved in the programme, and the degree to which they did so, would be up to them, he said.
‘‘It is entirely up to people how they want to use the scheme, but the scheme recognises different levels of participation and the higher up the scheme you get, the more benefits you get.’’
AIA would not get direct access to any health or lifestyle information customers provided, and would only be advised by Discovery if they had been accredited as ‘‘bronze, silver, gold or platinum’’ members of the scheme, Stanhope said.
But the insurer would offer Vitality members discounts on their health insurance premiums based on their tier status, to reflect their lower health risks, Stanhope said.
AIA had yet to decide the value of those discounts but Stanhope said they would be ‘‘material’’.
Vitality members would also be rewarded with discounts and offers on lifestyle-related products and services from thirdparty companies, which in Australia includes discounted airfares.
The rewards system stacked up commercially because it had been shown that people enrolled in Vitality had lower health risks, he said.
‘‘Discovery has been operating for 20 years, and we know from data that our customers will claim less and they will leave us less. The programme funds itself through the healthier outcomes of individuals.
‘‘We can demonstrate that through science and data.’’
About 130,000 AIA customers in Australia have joined Vitality and about 70 per cent of new customers were now signing up, he said.
The details of how people earn rewards can be customised between insurers and countries.
In South Africa, Discovery offers 5000 ‘‘points’’ to Vitality members who take HIV tests, for example, but that is not part of the incentive scheme as operated for AIA in Australia.
Stanhope said people did not need to be marathon runners to expect to get benefits from the scheme.
‘‘It is just about doing something every day to be more active, and part of it is about setting goals.’’
To achieve platinum status,
Kiwi members might need to show they were doing ‘‘moderate’’ exercise every day, and selfreport healthy eating and sleeping habits.
Stanhope did not know how DNA tests might be used in future in the insurance industry.
DNA tests can be used to estimate people’s risk of a wide variety of genetically-related conditions, including different types of cancers, and their cost is plummeting thanks to technological advances.
Stanhope said he had taken a DNA test himself.
‘‘The technology is evolving so quickly, it is hard to say where that might go.’’
The one thing people needed to be aware of at present from an insurance perspective was that if they did take a DNA test, they would then need to share the results with their insurer, he said.
‘‘I think the world is changing. Big data and artificial intelligence allows companies to assess risk in different ways ... and are providing information and choices to people which they can choose to accept or not.’’
Rob Henin, chief executive of rival insurer Nib, said it did not currently offer a programme rewarding healthy behaviours with discounted premiums but did also encourage its members to live healthy lives.
‘‘Our corporate groups can access our myhealthHQ ‘online wellness platform’ which supports employee wellness initiatives through wellness assessments and health information.
‘‘We have also trialled a wellness programme with our own employees which tracked their steps via Fitbits to encourage healthier behaviours,’’ he said.
Kelly McFadzien, a partner at law firm Chapman Tripp, said more data could lead to better or cheaper insurance for some people ‘‘as long as there are boundaries around how that data is used’’.
‘‘The other thing is if it’s going to be used for profiling or modelling, that could be concerning because it’s one thing to say we might use your information to help us make better decisions for you, but what does that really mean on a population basis?
‘‘It can also create unfairness between people who do choose to disclose and people who don’t.’’
New Zealand law did not give individuals as much control over their personal information as people enjoyed in Europe, she said.
‘‘I think a lot of the uncomfortableness around businesses gathering and using personal data in new ways stems from the fear that once the data is gone there is no way to ‘get it back’, McFadzien said.
‘‘Ensuring that control of the data sits with the individual as much as possible is one way to counter the power that businesses have.’’
‘‘The scheme recognises different levels of participation and the higher up the scheme you get, the more benefits you get.’’
Nick Stanhope