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Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

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Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#41

Post by matrixtransform »

jeron wrote: post #7
zimpenfish wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be opt-in and this isn't a new thing - there's several UK insurers that'll give you discounts and bonuses for life insurance if you log workouts with their apps. This just makes it easier for both sides.

honestly I'd support a program where the more you work out the lower your insurance premiums would be. Pretty hard to cheat workouts with Apple Watch when it has a heart rate sensor and all that.

You could cheat by giving the watch to someone else to do a workout for you?

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#42

Post by JohnTHaller »

If Aetna wanted to offer customers discounts on insurance for healthy activity, it would make far more sense to do it with something like a Fitbit. A purpose-built device for tracking activity and heartrate. The Apple watch doesn't do as good a job as the fitbit at fitness tracking, is bigger and heavier, is far more expensive, and gets far worse battery life. Not to mention the fact that the Apple Watch only works with iPhones meaning that it would be useless for the majority of US smartphone users whereas the Fitbit works with both iPhone (as much as Apple lets them) and Android.

Side Note: I switched from an Android watch to a Fitbit for activity and sleep tracking for many of the reasons outlined above.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#43

Post by chimeracoder »

laydn wrote: post #40
tomaskafka wrote: post #34

Let's not forget that what's even more profitable than 'pricing insurance according to actual activity' (which is a nicely sounding PR cover up) is 'dropping people with early symptoms of a disease before it gets found by their doctor'. Which is unethical, but legal (right?) and extremely, extremely profitable. Keep all premiums, drop people with cancer before they find out about it. And yes, if it's possible to infe…

This should quickly be declared illegal, if not already. With the amount of data that is being gathered on us, coupled with advances in machine learning and statistical analysis, in the near future, "they" will be able to figure out high risk scenarios before we even know about it. If they drop coverage or increase premiums based on this, they are no longer an "insurance company". I don't know what we would call them…

> This should quickly be declared illegal, if not already.

Dropping coverage like that is illegal already.

> If they ... increase premiums based on this, they are no longer an "insurance company". I don't know what we would call them.

Quite the contrary - an insurance company, by definition, is expected to price insured entities based on the expected future payouts (ie, the levels of risk). More specifically, the sum of all expected future premiums that a patient pays should be slightly more than the sum of all expected future claims for that patient.

If you're expecting it to behave otherwise, then you're looking for something that isn't insurance - insurance is, by definition, a model that relates risk and price.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#45

Post by Sleeep »

matrixtransform wrote: post #41
jeron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly I'd support a program where the more you work out the lower your insurance premiums would be. Pretty hard to cheat workouts with Apple Watch when it has a heart rate sensor and all that.

You could cheat by giving the watch to someone else to do a workout for you?

I imagine someone working out with like 6 fitness trackers attached to them.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#46

Post by Sleeep »

drewg123 wrote: post #27
maxerickson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's super easy. Strap it to someone else.

Or to a machine, like Howard did on the Big Bang Theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnTXqqCVaSI

That reminds me, back during the Tamagotchi craze (which coincided with the Pokemon craze) there was a virtual pet Pikachu that rewarded you for walking (it was a pedometer) and the screen would show Pikachu walking while you were. It was pretty cute. Well, it wasn't long before my little brother figured out how to "cheat" He put it on the washer. (I think dryer worked as well)

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#47

Post by laydn »

chimeracoder wrote: post #43
laydn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should quickly be declared illegal, if not already. With the amount of data that is being gathered on us, coupled with advances in machine learning and statistical analysis, in the near future, "they" will be able to figure out high risk scenarios before we even know about it. If they drop coverage or increase premiums based on this, they are no longer an "insurance company". I don't know what we would call them…

> This should quickly be declared illegal, if not already. Dropping coverage like that is illegal already. > If they ... increase premiums based on this, they are no longer an "insurance company". I don't know what we would call them. Quite the contrary - an insurance company, by definition, is expected to price insured entities based on the expected future payouts (ie, the levels of risk). More specifically, the sum…

Shouldn't that read:

"" More specifically, the sum of all expected future premiums that all patients pay should be slightly more than the sum of all expected future claims for all patients ""

You can not reduce the calculations to a single patient. If an insurer finds out that you will develop a certain type of cancer for which median treatment cost is 1M USD and lifetime support costs will be 30K USD/year, they should not be allowed to increase your premium accordingly.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#48

Post by brlewis »

zimpenfish wrote: post #23
pawadu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet Apple is #3 after Xiaomi and fitbit, with more Asian companies closing in. I think Apple needs this deal more than they admit.

Presumably that's #3 in "market share" or "units sold" (assuming both Xiaomi and Fitbit accurately report the latter) and not "profit"?

Units shipped: https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/apple-falls-third-place-q2-...

I don't think Apple reports units shipped. Fitbit does. I don't know about Xiaomi. The numbers are a mix of reported units and estimated units.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#49

Post by notfromhere »

chimeracoder wrote: post #43
laydn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should quickly be declared illegal, if not already. With the amount of data that is being gathered on us, coupled with advances in machine learning and statistical analysis, in the near future, "they" will be able to figure out high risk scenarios before we even know about it. If they drop coverage or increase premiums based on this, they are no longer an "insurance company". I don't know what we would call them…

> This should quickly be declared illegal, if not already. Dropping coverage like that is illegal already. > If they ... increase premiums based on this, they are no longer an "insurance company". I don't know what we would call them. Quite the contrary - an insurance company, by definition, is expected to price insured entities based on the expected future payouts (ie, the levels of risk). More specifically, the sum…

That's not insurance, you're basically describing a health savings account.

Insurance spreads the cost of all payouts by all patients as to spread out the risk amongst every patient. Not every patient will be profitable. The goal is to have enough healthy, profitable patients to balance out the sick individuals.

Re: Apple in talks with Aetna to bring Apple Watch to millions of customers

#50

Post by notfromhere »

Noos wrote: post #26
jeron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly I'd support a program where the more you work out the lower your insurance premiums would be. Pretty hard to cheat workouts with Apple Watch when it has a heart rate sensor and all that.

You're okay with corporations having extremely intrusive tools to track your behavior and control it through price for their own benefit?

If the insurance scheme is public, incentivizing individuals to remain healthy in order to lower the cost for everyone is a civil duty.
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