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Internet of Things (IoT): Considerations for Life Insurers

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Life Insurance in Europe

Part of the book series: Financial and Monetary Policy Studies ((FMPS,volume 50))

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Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) is a cross-industry, worldwide trend led by connectivity to Internet and development of programmable devices and sensors. Smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, car black boxes, smart home sensors, and smart clothes—these are just few examples of devices that constantly collect data about their users and track their behavior or lifestyle. Most of those devices are connected to the Internet, directly or indirectly so this data can be saved and shared.

Like many other industries, the insurance industry has also been affected by IoT. Multiple IoT solutions have successfully been applied in the non-life insurance (insurers have offered smart home policies and telematics motor insurance). Life and health insurers are seeking options to use data collected by wearables as regular tracking of physical activity and health conditions creates new opportunities for policy underwriting, pricing, and claims handling. IoT-linked life and health insurance is sometimes called PAYL (pay as you live) or connected life insurance.

This chapter provides an overview of IoT in insurance and addresses current issues, opportunities, and challenges in the life and health insurance areas. It presents typical PAYL products and explains how wearable data can be applied by insurers. Possible IoT applications will be presented for various stages of the life insurance value chain, focusing on underwriting and claims handling.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Connectivity is ensured by radio or Ethernet protocol. Radio protocols include ZigBee, Zwave, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular technology, or LPWA (low power, wide-area), and each of them has different characteristics. More information on technical aspects of IoT protocols can be found in (Sinclair 2017, pp. 195–199).

  2. 2.

    Throughout May–July 2019, the author conducted a structured and standardized search of the relevant academic literature by searching for the key words “(Internet of things or IoT) and (life insurance),” “(Internet of things or IoT) and (health insurance),” “wearable(s) and insurance,” “Garmin and insurance,” “Fitbit and insurance,” “Telematics and Life Insurance,” “smartwatch and insurance” in the databases: Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Business Source Ultimate (EBSCO), and JSTOR, accessed at the Warsaw University Library. The vast majority of search results were press releases, notes in non-reviewed magazines or newspaper articles.

    Author has ignored any sponsored articles, any SME briefings shorter than 1 page, summaries of reports provided by consulting companies and reinsurers (any reports the author is referring to in this article are original reports available from those companies) and any juridical articles referring to legal acts binding in the USA.

    Next, the author has searched the Google Scholar database, using key words “life insurance internet of things,” “life insurance IoT,” “telematics life insurance,” and “insurance wearables.” The vast majority of articles found focused on general IoT considerations, mainly in the security and data protection area, without focusing on life insurance. Some of the articles focused on car telematics pricing.

    Relevant academical literature has been found, i.e., in the US National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc) and in the open access-journal Sensors, available at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors

  3. 3.

    As insurers generally perform limited research of insurance markets or trends, these are the reinsurers and leading consulting companies who provide regular and comprehensive analysis of the insurance markets, trends, risks, opportunities and challenges, often in partnership with research institutes. Examples of such analysis are: (EY 2019; Deloitte 2018; KPMG 2019; McKinsey 2019a, c; Accenture 2018; CapGemini 2017; PWC and Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) 2019; Munich Re 2018a; Swiss Re 2019; Scor 2018a).

  4. 4.

    ‘Telematics’ is another word commonly used for IoT. Some IoT practitioners use the work ‘telematics’ to cover all types of IoT products while some other reserve this word for connected car policies.

  5. 5.

    Subject to basic regulatory requirements to run the life and non-life insurance business separately.

  6. 6.

    As the market has evolved, the UBI is probably not the best name (anymore) to name such policies. Moreover, in most cases, the premium is usually not adjusted to incorporate mileage or driving behavior of the policyholders—as per estimations of IoT Insurance Observatory, in 2017 this applied for 9% of the policies only. This means that the remaining 91% of policies don’t adjust premiums and the driver/policyholder pays a precalculated premium for the whole policy period. Where the behavior/mileage data is used, is only the renewal of the policy.

    The IOT Insurance Observatory is a think tank, gathering executives from more than 50 insurers, institutions, and the Internet of Things ecosystem. Full list of members is available on organization’s website: https://iotinsobs.com/.

  7. 7.

    It is important to explain the role of intelligent virtual assistants at this stage as they are relevant for IoT value chain, i.e., insurance distribution which will be covered in later chapter of this article.

    Intelligent virtual assistants (sometimes called intelligent personal assistants) are voice controlled software agents that are able to proceed the requested action like searching the Internet, schedule alarms, order a pizza, order a taxi, turn on the music, change the lightening, text someone, send an email, etc. It interprets user’s commands based on natural language processing and speech recognition and then performs required action based on software/apps programmed on-/downloaded to this device. They need a so called “wake word” to start understanding and processing the request. Those wake words differ from one virtual assistant to another. For example, for Amazon’s Alexa the wake-up word is “Alexa” while Google assistant “wakes up” when the words “OK Google” or “Hey Google” are used. Apple’s virtual assistant is woken if a phrase “Hi Siri” is heard.

  8. 8.

    Google Home® Speaker is a smart speaker that uses the Google assistant’s functionality and can proceed user’s command within the functionalities/apps built-in/downloaded on the device. It uses the same natural language processing and voice recognition functionalities as the Google assistants commented in footnote above. However, it is an independent device that looks like a speaker and in fact it is a speaker. Other smart speaker are also available, like Amazon’s Echo, or Apple’s HomePod. They are available in selected countries. The functionalities can vary from one country to another. https://store.google.com/gb/?hl=en-GB&countryRedirect=true.

  9. 9.

    The discount is 25$ per kit, 3 kit variants are available, the Amazon’s personal assistant speaker “Echo” is offered for free. Valid as of June 2019, offer available on Amazon’s website at www.amazon.com/travelers, retrieved 20/06/2019, 4:20 CET.

  10. 10.

    Terms and conditions are available on insurer’s website at www.neos.uk. Complimentary device offer valid as of May 2019, confirmed by Neos consultant in personal web chat with the author of this article on 23-May-19. Transcription of the conversation available per request.

  11. 11.

    Terms and conditions are available on Google Nest Help Centre, accessible at https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9242091?hl=en. Scope of information provided to participating insurance company is confirmed accordingly.

  12. 12.

    Devices can be compared directly on producers’ websites: Xiaomi: https://www.mi.com/uk/list/#5, Fitbit: https://www.fitbit.com/compare, Apple: https://www.apple.com/uk/watch/, Garmin: https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/c10002-p1.html?sorter=featuredProducts-desc, Samsung: https://www.samsung.com/uk/wearables/

    Availability and functionalities may vary by country.

  13. 13.

    Author of this article has been using Garmin Vivoactive HR that is capable to track running, cycling, in-door running, swimming, golf, walk, rowing, skiing, and many other physical activities.

  14. 14.

    More information on Garmin Pay and Fitbit Pay is available on producers’ websites: Garmin: https://explore.garmin.com/pl-PL/garmin-pay/, FitBit https://www.fitbit.com/fitbit-pay.

  15. 15.

    For purposes of Euromonitor-provided market estimations a category of wearables has been limited to electronic devices designed to be worn by the user, typically on the wrist or head. The category only covers products designed for retail sale and consumer usage. Products designed for use in medical, military, and any other profession such as diving are excluded.

  16. 16.

    Estimations provided by different analysts are not consistent because of different methodologies used and different definitions/scoping of wearables. As per IDC estimation, the total number of wearables shipments in 2018 was estimated as 172.2 million units, with 46.2 million items sold by Apple. However, IDC’s analysis covered also other wearables like ear-worn wearables and as per IDC’s clarification this market segment is growing. For more detailed information on IDC’s estimations please (IDC 2019) access IDC’s report linked under: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44901819&utm_medium=rss_feed&utm_source=Alert&utm_campaign=rss_syndication.

  17. 17.

    Smart lenses developed by Google and Novartis have been dismissed by many researches as ‘technically infeasible’ as tears have proved not as reliable in measuring glucose levels in humans compared to extracting blood. See more at: https://labiotech.eu/features/contact-lens-glucose-diabetes/.

  18. 18.

    More details on referenced devices can be found here: Cardiosecur https://www.cardiosecur.com/, AliveCor https://www.alivecor.com/, EkoHealth https://www.ekohealth.com/.

  19. 19.

    When searching the PubMedCentral® (PMC) provided by the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health using the query “medical apps” the search engine resulted in more than 73.7 thousand of publications. PubMed Central® (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the US National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM) (available https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc) (retrieved on 16-May-19, 12 AM CET). The query “mHealth” resulted in over 19.3 thousand research items.

  20. 20.

    John Hancock’s life insurance policies with Vitality Plus membership provide the policyholders with discounts on hotel booking via partnered booking provider Hotels.com.

  21. 21.

    This applies for policy option with Vitality Plus only (monthly cost of 2USD), it doesn’t apply for basic, free of charge option with Vitality Go. Vitality is the provider of Vitality program, the leader in this market segment. It works in partnerships with insurers and employers around the world, this led to more than eight million people from 19 countries being included in the program (Vitality Group 2018).

  22. 22.

    Detailed information on telemedicine and virtual health trends, including insight gathered from the patients, can be found in Accenture’s report “Voting for Virtual Health” published in 2017 (Accenture 2017b). Another view on healthcare trends is provided by McKinsey in their publication “Next-generation member engagement during the care journey” (McKinsey 2019c) and by Deloitte in the 2019 Global Health Care Outlook (Deloitte 2019).

  23. 23.

    (1) Overview of Oscar’s telemedicine is available on insurer’s website: https://www.hioscar.com/doctor-on-call (retrieved on 21-Sep-19, 11:13 CET); (2) Bupa UK’s and Babylon cooperation was announced in Bupa’s News, released on 30-Nov-2018 (Bupa 2018). (3) Dedicated website for Cigna Customers using MDLive services is available under: https://www.mdliveforcigna.com/mdliveforcigna/landing_home (retrieved 21-Sep-19, 11:30 CET); (4) MeMD’s telemedicine services have recently been rewarded by the insurer; corresponding press release is available on MeMD’s website: https://blog.memd.me/aflac-recognizes-memd-partner-year-outstanding-service/ (retrieved 21-Sep-19, 11:35 CET).

  24. 24.

    Dedicated mobile app is available from Apple Store (https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1438040517).

  25. 25.

    The full story can be watched at https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/15/apple-talking-to-private-medicare-plans-about-subsidizing-apple-watch.html (watched on 20-Sep-19, 7:10 PM CET).

  26. 26.

    The relevant consumer surveys are quoted are (LexisNexis 2016; Accenture 2017a; Capgemini and EFMA 2018).

  27. 27.

    On rare occasions you can see general questions on physical activity.

  28. 28.

    This section summarized evaluation taken by Munich Re and the characteristics of the dataset provided by the health analytics company Vivametrica, as described in Munich Re’s publication stratifying mortality risk using physical activity as measured by wearable sensors Munich Re (2018a, b).

  29. 29.

    Vivametrica is a health analytics company and provides dedicated tools to structure or analyse health data. One of the tools developed is vScore Life which Vivametrica’s mortality risk assessment toolkit. Vivametrica has worked with MunichRe and Scor, but it collaborates also with wellness platform providers. Company’s website is available under https://www.vivametrica.com/.

  30. 30.

    They differ by scope of input required, formulas used, and complexity of the models. Even if not called “biological age” directly, this concept is also used by Vitality Health assessment, provided by AIA Vitality in Australia. Questionnaire is available on insurer’s website under: https://www.aiavitality.com.au/vmp-au/know_your_health/vitality_health_review.

  31. 31.

    The concept of BAM is described in details on SCOR’s dedicated websites: https://www.scor.com/en/biological-age-model-bam (retrieved on 21-Sep-19, 18:58CET) (SCOR 2018b).

  32. 32.

    Insights displayed by Garmin; screenshot includes author’s data, no additional data usage consent is needed, however sensitive data has been removed from the picture.

  33. 33.

    This has been introduced by Zurich UK as ‘Facequote’, see https://www.zurich.co.uk/insurance/facequote.

  34. 34.

    Virtual assistants have been described in the smart home insurance section of this article.

  35. 35.

    Examples of insurers “present” on Alexa are Travelers, Liberty, Axa, Aviva, DFV Deutsche Familienversicherung AG, or Liberty mutual. Usually the scope of services provided is limited to obtain simple information on policy, product scope, or contact numbers to insurer’s representatives.

  36. 36.

    Any juridical discussions around accuracy, reliability and legitimacy of the data are not covered by this article.

  37. 37.

    As part of menstrual cycle tracking, Garmin’s female users can manually log information on their sexual activity or sex drive. It is not compulsory and this option can be disabled by the user without disabling of the female health tracking module.

  38. 38.

    Along with tobacco use, physical inactivity, the harmful use of alcohol and unhealthy diet. Source: WHO, Noncommunicable diseases, Key Facts, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/noncommunicable-diseases (retrieved 13.07.2019, 7:20 PM CET).

  39. 39.

    As per WHO statistics, the NCD’s kill 41 million people every year, causing 71% of the deaths globally. Each year, 15 million of people aged 30–69 die from those diseases (so called pre-mature deaths). Main NCD types are: cardiovascular diseases (stroke, heart attacks), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. Those 4 disease types count for over 80% of all premature NCD deaths. Source: WHO, supra note.

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Acknowledgements

Any opinion presented in this article is author’s private opinion and must not be in any way associated with opinion of author’s employer or any other organization to which the author has provided any kind of work or services as an employee or a contractor. Author is an independent researcher not affiliated to any school.

This article doesn’t violate any intellectual rights. It has been produced in author’s private time, using author’s private devices and software. It is not a work product performed for or on behalf of author’s employer.

Any information on insurers, reinsurers, analytics health companies, wellness platforms providers, or consulting companies used in this article is a publicly available information, obtained from public website or relevant press releases of these companies. Author declares that no restricted or confidential information has been used in this article. All sources and items quoted or referenced in this paper are available via Google Scholar, Google search, or databases available at the University of Warsaw Library (https://www.buw.uw.edu.pl/).

The author declares no conflict of interest. Entities quoted or referenced in this article have been presented in an objective manner based on availability of data and information with the aim to ensure possibly broad and differentiated perspective.

This is a research article and must not be read (fully or partially) as any kind of recommendation, offering, advisory, or consultancy.

All health data used in this article is author’s personal data. No additional consent is needed to use this data (including screenshots) to explain the IoT applications for life insurers, as covered in this article. However the author doesn’t give consent to use her data further. This applies also for citation or future references to this article.

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Małek, A. (2020). Internet of Things (IoT): Considerations for Life Insurers. In: Borda, M., Grima, S., Kwiecień, I. (eds) Life Insurance in Europe. Financial and Monetary Policy Studies, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49655-5_12

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