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GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

glp1digest.com

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Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#81

Post by toomuchtodo »

prasadjoglekar wrote: post #5
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

It sounds like aligning incentives here is requiring the weight stay off for the policy to remain in effect with an annual physical for monitoring, similar to what employers require for health insurance premium reductions. Point in time underwriting is suboptimal considering current state of the art of GLP-1s (unless newer protocols that can update metabolic profiles are delivered soon).

Or life insurers paying for ongoing GLP-1s instead of potentially the health insurer. But to your broader point, at least in the US, incentive mis-alignment on all healthcare and health insurance is possibly irredeemably broken.

Nailed my broader point. Could we go through contortions to see who is going to pay unreasonable costs for GLP-1s (health insurance, life insurance)? We could, but that's silly accounting to see who still gets to make the profit and who has to end up with the bill for empowering the human to fix their reward center. The shortcut is to provide GLP-1s to everyone who needs them at scale, as inexpensively as possible (to pull forward the improvement in health and quality of life outcomes until improved protocols arrive). The semaglutide patent is about to expire in Canada, China, India, and Brazil, for example.

https://www.labiotech.eu/in-depth/novo-nordisk-semaglutide-p...

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#82

Post by animal_spirits »

44520297 wrote: post #59
Group_B wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s usually a self inflicted disease. Your own actions cause it most of the time

Which other self-inflicted medical conditions do we deny medical care for?

We prescribe alcoholics with medicine to help them curb their alcohol intake, but if they do not learn the discipline to not drink then they can end up back where they started after getting off the medicine. But I don't think either drugs for alcoholism or obesity should be denied to anyone. However there are other tools to supplement with to help learning discipline.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#83

Post by mcherm »

If insurers are suffering from "mortality slippage" because some of their customers purchased insurance while on GLP-1s then later discontinue the medication, then there must also be "mortality slippage" in the opposite direction. There must be customers who were not on GLP-1s when they purchased insurance, but could go on them, extending their lives in a way that is very profitable to the life insurance companies.

Furthermore, there are more people not on GLP-1s than on them (even with the recent surge in popularity) so this population that can give life insurance companies "excess" profits must outnumber those the article describes where the insurance company takes a loss.

Why can't they focus on this profit opportunity?

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#84

Post by saturneria »

almosthere wrote: post #25

so surreal reading comments... a month after non-stop threads about glp causing a billion issues, everyone is talking about how wonderful they are again. humanity

What is well studied and has a billion issues is obesity.

Imagine that, people make up bullshit that isn't grounded in reality. Who would have thought!

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#85

Post by paulpauper »

llm_nerd wrote: post #6

This is a fun read, however- "Life insurers can predict when you'll die with about 98% accuracy." This conclusion isn't supported by the linked document. The document instead is talking about expected vs actual deaths among demographic groups as a whole, not individual people. And that expected vs actual is just history + trends. This doesn't mean that insurance can say that Joe Blow is going to die in June of 2027 w…

They can predict it in the sense most people will die within some specified window in which the insurer makes a profit. This is why its so profitable for the insurer. They have a very wide window where it's profitable and the vast majority of people, 98%, fall within this window. .

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#87

Post by Spivak »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #53
ramoz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what sucks about being on the prescriptions?

I'm just reporting my cached knowledge of people saying they experienced some adverse side effects. Also injections are not fun, even though they are probably a lot less annoying than they look.

Subcutaneous shots with insulin needles are basically painless. You don't even feel a prick, it's just a little pressure and then it slides in. When you get a shot at the doctor it's painful because they're intramuscular.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#88

Post by mattmanser »

petesergeant wrote: post #45
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #23

So... There's a miracle drug powerful enough to robustly lower people's all cause mortality, but since health insurance and life insurance are industries with vastly different time preferences, this is not a good thing for the life insurers because people just keep getting off the magic longevity drug and screwing up their predictions. Because, admittedly, it kind of sucks in the moment to be on. And I'm guessing jus…

> admittedly, it kind of sucks in the moment to be on I don’t think that’s a typical experience for most people, other than the price

There's often side effects, including nausea, diarrhea, headaches, bloating, discomfort, etc.

As far as I can tell from forums, it's not like 5% have the side effects, it's like 80-90%.

But for the first time in decades, I felt full. I didn't want to finish a meal, it was too much.

My body regulated my food intake in what felt like a natural way.

I hadn't even realized my body had somehow lost that fundamental mechanism of appetite control. It made me realize I wasn't weak willed, something is different about my body than other people.

But it comes with a price. The side effects I had were quite bad and so I stopped (though I now read that if I switch to a different brand, I might be ok).

I often didn't want to leave the house due to a dicky tummy. It could come/go in waves. But often can last a whole week.

Plus you've got to inject yourself every week. Often you can't drink as it makes you sick. Even when you're doing everything 'right' you can feel a bit off.

If you do over-indulge (with food or drink) the side effects can sometimes be massively amplified and you feel terrible for days.

So amazing in some ways, but it's not like taking a vitamin tablet. There are costs and making one slip up can result in suddenly feeling awful for a day or two.

Perhaps I was just particularly prone to the side effects, but it seems to happen to a lot of people (I found Mumsnet threads about it useful, they are quite revealing as they seem to be fairly honest and willing to share their experiences)

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#89

Post by 44520297 »

Sparkle-san wrote: post #72
44520297 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is obesity the only disease that taking medicine for is “cheating”? Which is more important: instilling your particular version of “discipline” into people, or saving billions in healthcare costs and millions of lives from suffering?

Cheat code was probably not the best term for it, I'll admit. I don't fault anyone for chosing to try GLP-1s and the cause of obeseity isn't particularly on the individual given the prevailance of ultra processed foods and car transportation in our society. That all being said, regaining most, if not all, the weight has been a historical issue around weight loss treatments because they're not durable. The way we're p…

Would you say the same about blood pressure medications, diabetes medications, cholesterol medications, thyroid hormone replacement, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety medications, immunosuppressants, DMARDs, corticosteroids, anticonvulsants, Parkinson’s medications, multiple sclerosis treatments, blood thinners, and heart failure medications? All of them set people up for rebound failure if they stop taking them for the chronic condition they started them for.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#90

Post by paul7986 »

pmg102 wrote: post #74
lumost wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being downvoted as many people who try to count calories fail to achieve meaningful results. From my own experience, weight gain follows a simple progression. 1. Expected high stress work day -> Coffee w/ food item in the morning 2. Stress during the day -> No exercise + large lunch. 3. Post-day -> door dash due to not feeling up for cooking. 4. Sleep -> Get 6 hours of sleep due to not having the energy to mai…

People seem to be taking it as given that "someone else preparing the food for you" == "the food is more likely to lead to weight gain". Why should that be? Is it not possible to order healthy food in? If not this would surprise me as it seems a number of people would be seeking this. I'm asking as I don't have personal experience.

Everyone lives and enjoy life as they choose as they should!

For those who are not interested cutting down daily on what they eat this data would not be valuable to them just as the data their phone captures now how many steps you walked in a day.

Myself I eat Cava bowls for lunch that are less then 600 calories, drink 70 percent water (not consuming calories from what I drink) and unsweet tea (zero calories in tea) with some lemonade to sweeten it a bit as the remainder. Other chains you can find similar meals that are less then 600. If you eat as such and keep at (change ur lifestyle for good) it some weight will be lost if the person wants to as well go for a walk on their lunch break. But again all about to how people want to live and enjoy their lives!

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