How to Combine Health Tech with Insurtech
The integration of health technology (health tech) into the life insurance industry represents a significant shift towards more personalised, efficient, and effective services.
Insurance companies that are already integrating with safe, secure, and reliable health tech are reaping the rewards.. Also known as the Internet of Medical Things (or IoMT), the health tech industry is expected to reach a global market size of around $239 billion USD by 2030. Additionally, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly evolving digital health. Predictive analytics and personalised medicine, two areas where AI is particularly well-suited, are already transforming healthcare delivery through more accurate diagnosis and individualised treatment plans.
In this article we explore how health tech innovation aligns with smart Insurtech. Read on to discover how to combine the technologies to scale for future success with the INSTANDA platform.
What is Health Tech?
According to the World Health Organization, health technology is the application of organised knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of life.
Health tech includes wearable devices, mobile health apps, telemedicine, electronic health records (EHRs), and more, all designed to monitor, analyse, and improve peoples' health and wellness.
For life insurers, the adoption of health tech offers a wealth of opportunities to optimise operations, enhance risk assessment, and improve customer engagement and satisfaction.
How Does Health Tech Align with Smart Insurtech?
Today, most life and health insurers still rely on technologies that enable descriptive risk management by tracking customers’ physical data and annual medical check-ups (if and when that information is available).
But, in order to enable dynamic risk management, smart insurtech solutions for the life and health sector must evolve from tracking what happened in the past to predicting what can happen in the future, to optimise insurance products and policies more accurately.
To achieve this, health tech and insurtech can be combined to provide personalised solutions — with the help of predictive algorithms and powerful data analytics to provide valuable insights for insurance providers. Real-time data allows insurers to evolve with individual customers’ needs over time while taking into account specific risk models while offering a more personalised, predictive, and even preventive health insurance service.
1Life in South Africa and Vitality here in the UK are two prominent examples of insurance companies that proactively combine customer data along with health tech and integrate it to inform day-to-day insurance premiums and policies.
What are the Benefits of Innovative Health Insurance Products?
With detailed health and wellness data available through health tech, life insurers can offer more personalised insurance policies tailored to an individual's specific needs and risk profile. This level of customisation not only enhances the value provided to the customer but also aligns the premiums more closely with the actual risk being insured, potentially leading to lower costs for healthier individuals.
For end customers:
Innovative health insurance products can improve customer experience, establish greater trust, and foster credibility among customers.
Health tech enables insurers to maintain more frequent and meaningful interactions with policyholders. For example, through health and wellness apps, insurers can offer tips, reminders, and incentives to encourage healthier lifestyles. This continuous engagement helps build a stronger relationship between the insurer and the insured, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
In fact, in Forrester’s annual index, consumers rank customer service, communication, and feeling respected by the company they’re engaging with as the biggest reasons for choosing an insurance provider.
For underwriters:
Combining smart insurtech with health tech results in increased competitiveness in the marketplace. Compiling new data allows underwriters to do their job more effectively (and ultimately increase the profitability of the organisations they work for). Data-fuelled insights lead to better policy cover and risk identification for customers in less time.
On top of that, digital health ecosystems also hold promise in improving administrative efficiency based on lower overhead costs and faster turnaround times for insurance companies. By seamlessly sharing data among all parties, there’s a strong foundation to reduce the need for manual processing or time-consuming data collection.
Use Cases of Smart Insurtech and Health Tech Innovation
Behavioural Analytics & Data
With granular data insights into customers’ lifestyles, insurers have the tools to get to know customers better and can shape policies and insurance cover to suit. In addition, localised big data can draw on data trends to provide area-specific wellness and safety information that considers environmental factors, such as pollution, solar strength, epidemiology, local safety alerts, and other relevant information.
Health & Wellness Apps
Many health apps are available for tablets and smartphones. With access to an AI assistant or a qualified medical professional, customers can get the information they need from the comfort of their own home at a convenient time.
Digital Wearables
Digital wearables, like smartwatches, enable a deeper, data-driven understanding of policyholders' health and lifestyle habits. These devices track a wide range of biometric measurements—steps taken, type of activity, quality of sleep, and heart rate. Beyond personal health monitoring, they offer personalised insights, workout suggestions, and comprehensive health functions through a connected IoT ecosystem. This wealth of data is scaled, interpreted through applications, and subsequently shared with insurers and health professionals, opening the door to more personalised insurance policies and health advice. It allows for real-time health monitoring, which can lead to preventative healthcare measures, potentially reducing the need for costly medical interventions. For insurers, this means an ability to more accurately assess risk, tailor policies to individual needs, and foster a closer, more supportive relationship with customers, ultimately driving down costs and improving health outcomes.
How to Combine Health Tech and Insurtech
Connected devices and wearables are increasingly being recognised as a golden opportunity for insurers. This is simply because the devices help them get to know their customers better and reward them with lower premiums. Health connectivity helps insurers to better understand and exploit risk profiles, assess all elements and conditions required to enable it to be gathered, and translate the data into a bespoke product.
But combining innovative health insurance products and smart insurtech is only one part of the puzzle. Customer engagement is key to success. True engagement is completely enveloped with customer trust regarding what their data is being used for and how they can turn access on/off.
Successfully harnessing customer data and insurtech informs just-in-time policies and products that offer value to the end customer in a clear and transparent way while simultaneously preserving precious company budget.
How the INSTANDA Platform Makes Health Tech Integration Simple
INSTANDA integrates with external medical underwriting and medical care provider selection. The platform is a no-code and completely configurable solution that seamlessly integrates with third-party data sources, workflow tools and existing systems.
INSTANDA allows insurers to:
Configure new products within days, rather than months
Simply attach your rules to pre-built forms
Simplify underwriting your products with embedded rules
Make light work of writing premium products
Personalise products and customer experiences
Integrate with other service partners (including IoTs) to enhance customer propositions
Discover an Insurance Platform that’s Trusted by Leading Insurers Worldwide
Whether digitising an entire business and multiple books, taking a vertical slice of an existing business, or launching a new innovative product, INSTANDA provides everything needed for data migration or designing new products.
Get in touch today with our team of friendly professionals to streamline your insurance life-cycle today.
Kick-start your journey by requesting a demo of INSTANDA.
