BENGALURU: If you have a health insurance policy or are planning to get one, you should seriously consider giving up a sedentary lifestyle, hit the gym, increase physical activity, eat right and live right — that is if you want to pay lower premiums that may soon be linked to good health and lifestyle.
A working group set up by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has recommended that insurance companies must make use of activity data monitored by fitness trackers while pricing and designing insurance products. The objective is to keep the customer/insurer informed about their health and include perks, such as lower premiums, for people who have a healthier lifestyle.
Subhash Chandra Khuntia, Chairman, IRDAI, told The New Indian Express, "The use of telemetrics for various insurance applications can be explored. Our working group has submitted a report recommending that policyholders who have healthier practices are incentivised. If insurance companies can give them bonus points for good practices, they can be given concession on premiums."
However, there will be full disclosure of such monitoring, Khuntia said. Also, it will be left to the insurance companies whether they want to tie up with companies manufacturing fitness trackers or would want to distribute wearable devices on their own to their customers. Whether the cost of the device will be borne by the company or the customer is also left to them, he said.
"It will not become compulsory. There are so many insurance products and we can begin with a few. The report was submitted two days ago, we will examine it and shortly communicate these recommendations to insurance companies. If people become healthier, the claims will come down for insurance companies and they can reduce the premiums," he added.
IRDAI will come out with guidelines for designing such insurance products, he said.
Popular fitness trackers include those from Fitbit, Garmin, GOQii and Xiaomi. Vishal Gondal, Founder and CEO, GOQii, said, "Insurance companies only have claims information and they get that after the customer gets sick. They'd get a medical test, but their health is not monitored constantly. Wearables that can measure heart rate and blood pressure will help keep heart disease and hypertension in check."
Max Bupa has a partnership with GOQii called GoActive where a Health Coach App records daily steps taken, daily food logs, sleep hours, etc., of the customer. This data is used by the health coach to offer personalised health coaching, and on achieving the set health goals, Max Bupa offers a discount of up to 20% of the base premium on renewal.
"The UK and the US have adopted such practices and it has benefited customers to a large extent," Gondal added.