GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
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GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
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Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
#2It 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).
Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
#3I guess, but this is sort of the same as going on a statin to get your cholesterol down for a better insurance rate. Then going off because of reasons...
Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
#4Obesity is highly correlated with other medical conditions, from cancer to diabetes to heart disease. I wonder if there is a point at which it is cheaper for health insurance companies to offer subsidized or even free GLP-1s to patients than pay out for other specialized medications. For example, my insurance covers flu shots in my community every year because it's presumably less expensive to pay for the shots compared to the increased rate of hospitalization that the flu causes.
Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
#5It 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.
Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
#6This 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 with "98% accuracy", obviously.
Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
#7I've always felt that there's some trade to be done here, with life and health insurers basically giving glp-1 et all for free bc they lower the cost of everything else
edit: and then Big Annuity lobbying to oppose this
Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
#8Well I guess a GLP-1 pacemaker would address this. A lifetime of doses weighs at much as a nickel?
Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
#9Obesity is highly correlated with other medical conditions, from cancer to diabetes to heart disease. I wonder if there is a point at which it is cheaper for health insurance companies to offer subsidized or even free GLP-1s to patients than pay out for other specialized medications. For example, my insurance covers flu shots in my community every year because it's presumably less expensive to pay for the shots compa…
You’re thinking too highly about the incentives of the US healthcare system. Since insurance is tied to your employer (and therefore changing every few years), and most people die on Medicare, there’s not much incentive for insurance companies to pay for preventative care that won’t actually help you for several decades.
Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance
#10This 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…
Put a little differently, they can predict that of your cohort (defined somehow), after June 2027, only X percent of you will still be alive.
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