Insurer Pushes Policies for Diabetics -- WSJ
October 29 2019 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Leslie Scism
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (October 29, 2019).
Manulife Financial Corp.'s John Hancock unit will market life
insurance to Americans with diabetes that includes a
behavior-change program and virtual clinic, in an effort to boost
sales by making life-insurance products more user-friendly.
Those services, announced Monday, will be provided through
Onduo, a joint venture under way since 2017 between Alphabet Inc.
unit Verily and French pharmaceutical group Sanofi SA. Alphabet is
the parent of Google.
Approximately 30 million Americans have diabetes, according to
the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People with
the disease can pay between 50% more to triple what healthy people
pay for life insurance, insurance executives say.
Hancock's partnership aims to tap this market in an effort to
rev up sales. Individual life-insurance policy sales have fallen
about 45% industrywide since the mid-1980s, to flatten out at about
9.6 million policies annually in recent years, according to Limra,
an industry-funded research firm.
The slide occurred as mutual funds and 401(k) savings programs
proliferated. Today, many Americans worry more about outliving
their savings than dying prematurely, executives say.
"We are selling a product that no one gets excited about
owning," said Brooks Tingle, chief executive of John Hancock's
life-insurance business. He said the Onduo partnership "is all
about being meaningful while the policyholder is living" -- not
simply paying a death benefit.
Onduo uses a smartphone app to link people with Type 2 diabetes
to medical professionals, dietitians and counselors. It provides
"coaches" to help participants set and meet health goals and offers
text messaging, food photo logs and glucose tracking. The program
also provides videoconferencing with doctors.
Healthy lifestyles and good medical care are widely credited
with helping people with diabetes improve their health, though it
remains to be seen how Onduo's emphasis on care through smartphones
will add to the mix.
The Boston-based Hancock has offered financial rewards to
policyholders who hit fitness and health milestones since 2015.
People with diabetes who buy Hancock's new "Aspire" policies also
will be eligible for such rewards, which are tied to activities
including exercise, healthy grocery purchases and meditation, Mr.
Tingle said.
Onduo will keep health data collected from the Hancock customers
and won't sell or disclose it to other parties, beyond confirming
people's usage in general terms for the rewards, the insurer
said.
Many life insurers do insure people with diabetes, though
guidelines differ across companies, said Nicholas Mancuso, a
manager at Policygenius.com, a site for consumers to learn about
products and comparison shop.
A healthy 30-year-old male can pay $26 to $55 a month for a
$750,000 term-life policy that lasts 20 years, while premiums for a
30-year-old Type 2 diabetic with a controlled condition and no
complications can range from $52 to $124 a month for the same
policy, according to Policygenius.
Insurers address health status through the underwriting process.
Underwriters typically study an applicant's family medical history,
as well as personal medical records and prescriptions, and conduct
a medical exam, which includes analysis of blood and urine
samples.
Under conventional practice, insurers don't know if -- five or
10 years past the initial underwriting -- a policyholder with
diabetes has made strides in controlling the disease, or
deteriorated in health, Mr. Tingle noted. At Hancock, Aspire
policyholders will be eligible for discounts of as much as 25%
annually if they achieve health goals.
"We think people taking steps to manage their diabetes are
probably paying too much for life insurance" over time, Mr. Tingle
said.
Write to Leslie Scism at leslie.scism@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 29, 2019 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
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