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Wearable technology – a user’s perspective

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Gary is now the proud owner of a Fitbit. Read on to find out what he thinks of it and wearable technology in general. It has been difficult to attend an underwriting conference over the last two or three years without hearing about ‘wearable technology’, ‘personalised health’, ‘wellness programmes’ or similar. Alongside these have been discussions about ‘big data’, ‘predictive modelling’ and ‘predictive analytics’, and the potential uses of alternative data sources in the underwriting process for greater accuracy or efficiency. A subject that gets a lot of airtime is wearable technology and how this might be used. Keen to…

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Vitality

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Elsewhere we write about gamification (using game design techniques to obtain and maintain customer engagement). The proposition offered by Vitality Life and Vitality Health in the UK is owned by South Africa’s Discovery Life. Recently rebranded from PruProtect and PruHealth, these firms replicate their parent company’s innovative approach to product design and customer engagement whilst also collecting a lot of useful data about customers. Vitality market individual life, critical illness, disability income and health insurance products. Critical illness has been a feature of many markets worldwide, and the well established principle is the payment of a lump sum on diagnosis…

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Gamification

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Consumers are becoming increasingly knowledgeable and engaged with technology. They are becoming more and more comfortable with researching and purchasing on-line. Just as retailers are working hard to make their technological interaction with customers more productive, insurers should do the same. Gamification is the use of game elements and design techniques for non-game-type problems. The theory goes that by using elements used in designing games, activities that might normally be dull and unexciting can be brought to life and become more engaging. It has become increasingly common in consumer culture and is used in many industries to increase customer engagement…

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A real game-changer?

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Game-changer? The term is often bandied about but almost as often reality fails to match expectation. But this time the game could be about to change – read on. Modern consumers looking to buy insurance are sure to check out the Internet. A good place to start might be a comparison site where one can get quotes from multiple insurers and then buy on line. The process for, say, motor insurance can take less than 15 minutes – although one might want to spend a bit longer reviewing the options and confirming one’s choice. However, if the modern consumer then…

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