Companies and insurers love fitness trackers. Should you?
Health analysts estimate that around 70 percent of the annual $2.6 trillion bill for health care costs in the U.S. are the consequence of potentially changeable human behavior. The avoidable price tag for complications from obesity and diabetes alone adds up to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that lifestyle changes in diet and behavior resulting in the sustained loss of just 10–15 pounds can reduce the risk of getting diabetes by 58 percent.
.. A much-debated study published in Health Affairs in 2013 said the programs may actually “shift costs to workers who can least absorb them” because healthy workers end up getting discounts while sick workers pay the maximum premium.
.. The auto insurance industry has been leading the way on the integration of tracking and insurance for years. Almost every major auto insurance provider now offers discounts for drivers who allow their driving habits to be tracked.
.. Let your teenage son go joyriding in the bad part of town at midnight…. and maybe you lose your discount.
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The data gathered on your driving habits, suggested Birnbaum, will be detailed enough to suggest whether you are the kind of person who wouldn’t blink if your premium was raised.
“Predictive analytics,” says Birnbaum, crunching the “big data” generated by telematics, will be able infer quite a bit about you from where and when and how you drive — whether, for example, you might be a good candidate for other products, like life insurance. Or whether you might be a bad risk, not because of how you drive, but because of where you live or what your income level is. And then, of course, there’s the inescapable flip side to getting a discount for participation. If you don’t participate, you are effectively paying a higher rate.
.. Peppet also has concerns about whether bottom line considerations will result in pressure from insurers and employers for ever greater levels of participation in these programs. What happens to privacy when “wellness” becomes a condition of your employment? After the drug test, here’s your tracker. Don’t take it off.