These insurers want you to wear FitBits
Some of the country’s leading health insurers are encouraging customers to wear fitness trackers, and offering rewards as incentives for doing so.
AIA already offers members benefits like shopping vouchers for staying active, while Medibank has offered a similar Flybuys point program for customers who reach 10,000 steps on their fitness tracker every day.
Longbow Research analyst Joe Wittine told Bloomberg last week, "These companies have all realised, ‘Heck, we need to move on beyond just offering a bunch of data and offer some form of additional intelligence. If we identify some abnormality in your heart rate, would people be willing to pay for that service?’ If it’s enterprise grade, you bet."
FitBit executive Amy McDonough added, "We have a long history of working with employers on corporate wellness programs, since then we’ve seen a really strong interest in health plans as well as the healthcare ecosystem generally.
“The goal there is to take what we’ve learned around corporate wellness, and what works in engagement, participation and results.”
What's your take? Good idea? Or an invasion of privacy?