Savvy insurers - big players like Generali, Germany's second largest primary insurance group, and Vitality in the UK, are moving into preventative health services – suggesting there's money to be saved here. Experts seem to agree within five years, wearable devices feeding information back to health insurance companies may become the norm rather than the exception – and insurers who don't change they way they operate could soon be left behind. One such expert is Jaakko Olkkonen, managing director of Finland-based mobile platform software company Wellmo. Olkkonen admits he has a vested interest in promoting wearable devices and apps which record key health information – like user activity, sleep patterns and heart rate – and feeding it back to insurers. He runs a digital platform designed to facilitate it, after all. But he says his predictions are accurate nonetheless.
December 6, 2016
