Life

It’s a new day not very far in the future. You wake up; your wristwatch has recorded how long you’ve slept, and monitored your heartbeat and breathing. You drive to work; car sensors track your speed and braking. You pick up some breakfast on your way, paying electronically; the transaction and the calorie content of your meal are recorded.

There is plenty of evidence that, generally, mortality is elevated in mental illness. That it should be so in the more severe forms such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder should be no surprise, but it is interesting to note that even milder conditions may present an extra risk.

The marriage between technology and faster underwriting is a union the life insurance industry has encouraged for many years. Progress has been slow, but MIB Group is making headway, recently signing an agreement with Epic to utilize its electronic health records system.

This final article explores the future of accelerated underwriting in the context of a broader consideration of the future of risk selection in general. It follows some of today’s prominent trends – personalized products, underwriting engagement, and heightened risks and regulations – to their potential long-term outcomes, and concludes with basic steps insurers can take today to help lead the industry of tomorrow.

The digitization of the life and health insurance business is happening at breathtaking speed. With that, the policy application and underwriting processes are being brought to the attention of people who used to be less concerned with them - such as actuaries, marketing folks and product managers.

Technological advances in biosensors and increasing amounts of heart rate data from wearable devices and electronic health records are leading to the development of more sophisticated underwriting algorithms. This data, when coupled with robust epidemiological evidence about the prognostic value of heart rate, may improve insurer understanding of cardiovascular risk and ultimately allow underwriters to better predict morbidity and mortality risk.

With advancing technology and evolving underwriting tools, it may be easy to overlook what has now become an “old standard”, the World Wide Web. 

The call often comes in like this one: “My client does something called vaping.  It’s not like smoking cigarettes—it’s much less toxic.   He doesn’t do it that often.  He can get a non-tobacco policy, right?”  So, what is vaping?   How toxic is it if at all?  And can you get a non-tobacco policy?