I knew that you could get a free Apple Watch Series 3 if you hit certain targets. I emailed to find out if they were going to have the same offers for Series 4, but have not gotten confirmation one way or the other. I just got an email saying "we couldn't find you in our customer database, so we can't help you".
I'd love to be one of their customers, if I can get a Series 4 out of it. Not just to have the watch, but also the incentive to stay active.
EDIT: this is my most downvoted comment ever, and I have no idea why. I assumed others reading this article might also wonder if their programs apply to the new Apple Watches. Apparently I was wrong?
I have not downvoted you but I am guessing that most people find the idea of giving up so much of your personal data in exchange for a shiny pebble silly at best.
I figured this might be part of it, and appreciate your confirmation. I'm certainly not saying others should do this, but for me it's a good concrete incentive. The immediacy of the financial benefit is more psychologically motivating than the long-term benefit of a longer life, at least for me.
To me insurance companies offering discounts for those who use trackers and exercise regularly is a good market solution to the out of control healthcare costs. We should be glad this is an option for people.
No. In fact, Hell no. I’m not wearing a fitness tracker so my life insurance company can keep tabs on me. That is utterly ridiculous. Give me a physical and charge me more if you have to, but none of this big brother stuff
The same countries, like the UK, where most motor insurers are well on the way to requiring in-car black boxes? Even the AA and RAC, that once could have been relied on to take a stance against such a thing, now offer telematics insurance.
Fortunately such a tracking mechanism ought to be trivial to automate. People went to some pretty fun lengths just for Pokemon Go, when there's financial incentive and prizes involved...
The insurance company never claimed it was open, I don't see how that's relevant.
If they can prove you were cheating the fitness tracker they can deny the insurance claim when you die. Not great for any family members who were counting on that.
You have not done your treadmill quota this week so we will up your premium.
Yup, sign me out as well.
Did somebody made an analysis of life costs in the USA vs Europe ?
I am in my thirties so the money I am making since I have moved here is pretty great (I also could have gotten higher paying jobs in Europe though) but it sure looks like a lot of factors are counterbalancing this, including the shameful health care system (or its absence really), so even if I was not already planning on moving somewhere else in a couple of years, this would make me consider it.
Many employers already require fitness goals and activities as part of the health insurance plans they offer. If you don't wish to participate, your premiums are much higher.
Of course they do, because they have a captive audience (you have to buy through your employer) which life insurance doesn't have.
Besides I haven't seen any of those incentives that really had teeth (usually you can avoid the penalty by not being fat, or by doing something silly and ultimately meaningless like meeting with a diatician).
You can just not wear your band and not exercise and pay the increase in premium. It seems like the bands come regardless to drag the horse to the water. If you don't want to drink,
they won't compel you to. What's wrong with that?
I am a senior software engineer with John Hancock. I can say with quite a bit of certainty that the Orwellian conspiracy is just paranoia. I can't tell you how many boring but necessary meetings I've sat through around what data we can cache on user's devices and ensuring we don't collect more geolocation data than necessary.
It's not just the project I'm on. It's a company attitude that it can't afford the problems that arise from bad data collection policies. My gut says this is sensational journalism.
This is a simply ridiculous response. Geolocation is the least intrusive data that is being discussed here. By far the bigger offense is tracking an individual's health to ensure that the employee is sufficiently "healthy."
John Hancock may not be monitoring my location (although every mobile device already is) but by its own admission, it will be monitoring my activity levels, computing the number of steps I take (or whatever other health metric it plans to use e.g. heart rate) and applying some formula to penalize employees who are "underperforming" on their health "goals." Insurance is already an enormously intrusive industry and fitness tracking crosses the threshold of unacceptable conduct.
The number of steps you take is more intrusive than where you've been? I'm supposed to believe John Hancock is going to bring about the boring dystopia you describe because you claim insurance is enormously intrusive?
Was your first sentence a warning about the rest of your response?
And developers who refuse to see other people's points are the exact reason we get these issues. That does not mean that you are wrong or that the people here are wrong.
Just because its not intrusive at the moment, it does not eliminate the slippery slope that it can cause. Because if we mandate fitness trackers today, tomorrow they might be used to monitor you during the workday, for "stress reasons". This is one of the main reasons why at least i dont like this.
Another reason i personally dont like this, is that it allows the insurance company to build an even bigger profile on me, and my data. Then sooner or later, that data will get sold off, stolen, or just gifted away. Also, how do we know other apps on your phone wont start stealing the info? Maybe Facebook will add it to their increasing list of info it collects, or google will add is as part of usability improvements or some other bs excuse.
> It's a company attitude that it can't afford the problems that arise from bad data collection policies.
As someone with decades of experience in privacy-related aspects of tech, let me tell you this: your company is already deceiving itself. It's like an addict, it wants the data, but thinks it can keep things under control if it just doesn't do too much.
There is no "safe" amount of personal tracking.
No matter what you think your plans are, no matter how much you delude yourself that "that will never happen", the bad things will happen. By deciding that this line of business will profit you (and I am speaking both to the person and the company), you will inevitably and without a doubt end up harming folks that you claim you won't.
"No more geolocation than is necessary" is a great example of the addict justifying the fix.
It sounds like a voluntary discount at the moment--including some manual data entry--but after they make it tighter and more mandatory, I predict a new industry: gaming exercise programs.
At first, in order to spoof daily steps, maybe you can just throw the tracker into a clothes dryer or rock tumbler, or maybe inside your hubcap. If they want to see heartrate also, then I predict a device that you place against the tracker's IR sensor and blinks IR back at it, simulating a heartbeat. This would cost a few dollars in parts.
The next step of course is to simply spoof the tracker and upload directly to the company's internal API.
Correct. Cheating on multi-million dollar term life policies is a bad idea. The company has high incentive to find a way not to pay. A 25k policy from your employer, not so much.
Well as all insurance companies do, when it comes for them to repay you (or in this case those you asked to be paid when you die), if the amount is big they’ll try to verify that you haven’t cheated.
That’s where it will be hard for your loved ones to find out that they’ll finally get nothing.
JH offers two types of plans, Vitality Go and Vitality Plus. The latter offer these incentives, but apparently (I just spoke with a JH rep) cost $2 more per month.
This changes the math a bit, and makes it clear that the "free" incentives aren't actually free. You're just paying for them in a different way (especially if you don't hit the activity targets). Maybe you come out a little ahead if you hit all the targets, but not as far ahead as you think.
Same, I also just find them uncomfortable. When I run stairs I hold my phone in my left hand to track my time and laps, and my wallet in my right hand just for symmetry. I don't like strapping things to myself nor having one thing on the left but not right (and vice versa).
This isn't a new idea, Virgin Pulse has been providing a service just like this for companies to integrate into their health-insurance and benefit plans for years.
>"In theory, everybody wins, as policyholders are incentivized to adopt healthy habits and insurance companies collect more premiums and pay less in claims if customers live longer."
If someone is not incentivized to adopt healthier habits due to the benefits of actually being healthier or feeling better are they really going to by a "incentivized" by their life insurance premiums?
It's also laughable to think one could ever be "winning" when they have agreed to wear a corporate tracking device.
A few insurance providers in the U.K. give out Apple whatches and gym memberships that need to be used for a “discount” the discount is them essentially not charging you the cost of these “gifts” not sure if they are collecting any data or not.
An alternative solution is to buy enough of a policy or have a savings account to just cover funeral expenses and drop the life insurance extra payouts.
Bet John Hancock would hate that solution. I mean, once you've covered your expenses, everything else is just luxury and hubris.
The purpose of the Vitality program has almost nothing to do with the advertised improvements in health but act as a 'land grab' of healthy lives from other insurers. Its almost entirely to do with selection despite what they may advertise.
Established insurers that dont start their own incentive program to keep these healthy lives are in for a very rough time as Vitality will spread like a cancer.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] threadI'd love to be one of their customers, if I can get a Series 4 out of it. Not just to have the watch, but also the incentive to stay active.
EDIT: this is my most downvoted comment ever, and I have no idea why. I assumed others reading this article might also wonder if their programs apply to the new Apple Watches. Apparently I was wrong?
Health insurance is something that pays for things continuously while you are alive to keep you alive and healthy.
Live insurance pays your beneficiaries (usually people that depend on your salary) when you die.
If they can prove you were cheating the fitness tracker they can deny the insurance claim when you die. Not great for any family members who were counting on that.
It's the standard trick: the company will offer temporarily lower prices, then once enough people are onboard, increase them again.
The company sets a new normal, gets all your fitness data, the people get a temporary price reduction, and lose their privacy.
Yup, sign me out as well.
Did somebody made an analysis of life costs in the USA vs Europe ?
I am in my thirties so the money I am making since I have moved here is pretty great (I also could have gotten higher paying jobs in Europe though) but it sure looks like a lot of factors are counterbalancing this, including the shameful health care system (or its absence really), so even if I was not already planning on moving somewhere else in a couple of years, this would make me consider it.
Besides I haven't seen any of those incentives that really had teeth (usually you can avoid the penalty by not being fat, or by doing something silly and ultimately meaningless like meeting with a diatician).
It's not just the project I'm on. It's a company attitude that it can't afford the problems that arise from bad data collection policies. My gut says this is sensational journalism.
John Hancock may not be monitoring my location (although every mobile device already is) but by its own admission, it will be monitoring my activity levels, computing the number of steps I take (or whatever other health metric it plans to use e.g. heart rate) and applying some formula to penalize employees who are "underperforming" on their health "goals." Insurance is already an enormously intrusive industry and fitness tracking crosses the threshold of unacceptable conduct.
Was your first sentence a warning about the rest of your response?
Just because its not intrusive at the moment, it does not eliminate the slippery slope that it can cause. Because if we mandate fitness trackers today, tomorrow they might be used to monitor you during the workday, for "stress reasons". This is one of the main reasons why at least i dont like this.
Another reason i personally dont like this, is that it allows the insurance company to build an even bigger profile on me, and my data. Then sooner or later, that data will get sold off, stolen, or just gifted away. Also, how do we know other apps on your phone wont start stealing the info? Maybe Facebook will add it to their increasing list of info it collects, or google will add is as part of usability improvements or some other bs excuse.
edit: spelling
As someone with decades of experience in privacy-related aspects of tech, let me tell you this: your company is already deceiving itself. It's like an addict, it wants the data, but thinks it can keep things under control if it just doesn't do too much.
There is no "safe" amount of personal tracking.
No matter what you think your plans are, no matter how much you delude yourself that "that will never happen", the bad things will happen. By deciding that this line of business will profit you (and I am speaking both to the person and the company), you will inevitably and without a doubt end up harming folks that you claim you won't.
"No more geolocation than is necessary" is a great example of the addict justifying the fix.
At first, in order to spoof daily steps, maybe you can just throw the tracker into a clothes dryer or rock tumbler, or maybe inside your hubcap. If they want to see heartrate also, then I predict a device that you place against the tracker's IR sensor and blinks IR back at it, simulating a heartbeat. This would cost a few dollars in parts.
The next step of course is to simply spoof the tracker and upload directly to the company's internal API.
That’s where it will be hard for your loved ones to find out that they’ll finally get nothing.
This big brother stuff is outrageous by the way.
This changes the math a bit, and makes it clear that the "free" incentives aren't actually free. You're just paying for them in a different way (especially if you don't hit the activity targets). Maybe you come out a little ahead if you hit all the targets, but not as far ahead as you think.
https://www.virginpulse.com/use-case/reduce-healthcare-costs...
If someone is not incentivized to adopt healthier habits due to the benefits of actually being healthier or feeling better are they really going to by a "incentivized" by their life insurance premiums?
It's also laughable to think one could ever be "winning" when they have agreed to wear a corporate tracking device.
Bet John Hancock would hate that solution. I mean, once you've covered your expenses, everything else is just luxury and hubris.
Established insurers that dont start their own incentive program to keep these healthy lives are in for a very rough time as Vitality will spread like a cancer.