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An insurance company wants you to hand over your Fitbit data so it can make more money. Should you?
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Tacklewasher wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »I get fewer steps than a lot of you most days, I'm a cyclist. I rode 15 hilly miles today, and do anywhere from 75 to 100 miles in a week. But those aren't steps.
This is the part that bugs me. I'm lifting weights because I think I should, and not because I enjoy it. So I wouldn't get "points" for that?
I do get what they are trying to do, but it really is more about getting sedentary people to move than to reward those actually already doing activities.
Agree! It's like those weight loss contests at work, where you can win a prize for losing X percent of your body weight. Which excludes all of us who are at a healthy weight already. There's no prizes for starting off healthy and staying that way for the duration of the contest.
I also have a real issue using something like a step-counter to monitor activity for incentive. Aside from all the people who do activities that don't include steps, what about all the people (and we are legion) who work in an environment where it's forbidden to bring in any device that has any kind of connectivity with any other device. Mechanical step counters would be fine, but how would you get the data?
The place I used to work gave out a bunch of generic cheap wrist trackers and did a contest as a part of "The Summer of Wellness", which they did because our insurance rates and sick time used were sky high. Teams of 4, most steps for the week won gift cards, gym memberships, that sort of thing. They intended to do it all summer.
First week, the three top teams were averaging 30,000 steps a day PER PERSON. There were two guys who had over 50,000 steps daily. People were sitting at there desks swinging their arm as they worked. People were telling stories of putting the tracker on the dog and letting it out back every night, putting it on their toddler, that sort of thing. No one got any prizes and the contest was eliminated.
I'll add, I have a Fitbit on my non-dominant wrist daily and it rarely credits me many unearned steps. But I could easily get it too if I wanted.
I would not participate in the OP program. My cynical side is sure "they" already know far more about my day-to-day life than I'm comfortable with. But the idea of willingly giving them access and not really knowing how much data that really is and what it could theoretically be used for (and make me pay for) raises alarms for the curmudgeon in me.
Ha, we had a similar program for a year, and yup, people were averaging up to 35000 steps daily, which coincidently was the max number of steps you could get credit for. While holding down full time jobs.0 -
I only have 6,700 steps today, and I'm winding down for the night.
But I rode 40 miles today, over the highest paved mountain pass in my state, from the valley floor below. It was 4,000 feet of up. Took me almost 4 hours.
From a steps point of view, I look like I had a fairly sedentary day. I mean it's Saturday, I didn't have to spend the day sitting at a desk. It would not be in my best interest to share my step data today.
Of course, I'm going hiking tomorrow.
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I'd do it if they'll give me a nice Garmin watch to track my laps in the pool. My steps might be nothing, but give me an hour and a half in the pool, and yeah, I'm working hard.1
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PowerliftingMom wrote: »Never and life insurance is a waste of money. Who knows what they will do with your info
If you die and leave little kids their guardians that will raise them for x numbet of years probably would disagree with you7 -
I would love to see data on how this is viewed across demographics. I would imagine most American adults would be against this - viewing this as an intrusion of privacy. Are children, teens, young adults as wary of the invasion of technology and gamification of behavior?
I would support this if and only if this would end up as a shared cost savings to customers, which it won't, so I am against it.2 -
I would love to see data on how this is viewed across demographics. I would imagine most American adults would be against this - viewing this as an intrusion of privacy. Are children, teens, young adults as wary of the invasion of technology and gamification of behavior?
I would support this if and only if this would end up as a shared cost savings to customers, which it won't, so I am against it.
Younger generation seems more willing of sharing information; just look @ the explosion of social media (albeit this can be used to create misinformation too). I'm also not very confident these would result in cost savings...more like a justification to work against paying more additional fees (fights insurance companies on a daily basis as part of my job...insurance is constantly working against any freedom of choice for both prescribers and patients...drug, qty allowed, cost threshold, locations of choice, etc...got to save EVERY penny).0 -
The number of steps, I don't have a problem with. I share my daily numbers with my employer in the summer, I get a little bit of cash for it.
Heart rate data, though, I feel like there will be some way to misuse that. I have no idea what it would be, but I can't shake the feeling.3 -
NorthCascades wrote: »The number of steps, I don't have a problem with. I share my daily numbers with my employer in the summer, I get a little bit of cash for it.
Heart rate data, though, I feel like there will be some way to misuse that. I have no idea what it would be, but I can't shake the feeling.
My immediate though is increase in heart rate is often an early sign of illness. So, when average heart rate starts going up they start increasing your premium or something? Could that be considered a pre-qualifying condition down the road that would effect future coverage options? (this is my speculation, not something I know is happening/ in future plans)3 -
NorthCascades wrote: »The number of steps, I don't have a problem with. I share my daily numbers with my employer in the summer, I get a little bit of cash for it.
Heart rate data, though, I feel like there will be some way to misuse that. I have no idea what it would be, but I can't shake the feeling.
I think number of steps is a bad idea, as it focuses on only one aspect. Nothing for lifting or cycling. So if I'm running half marathons I get more credit than when you go for a long bike ride? And now that winter is setting in and I'm back to more weights, I lose out for running less?
I don't know. It all sounds to "iffy" to me to be useful on the individual basis. Kinda like insurers basing rates partly on BMI.2 -
I am more than a collection of behaviors and preferences for someone else to monetize.
*adjusts tinfoil hat*
I'll see myself out.6 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »The number of steps, I don't have a problem with. I share my daily numbers with my employer in the summer, I get a little bit of cash for it.
Heart rate data, though, I feel like there will be some way to misuse that. I have no idea what it would be, but I can't shake the feeling.
I think number of steps is a bad idea, as it focuses on only one aspect. Nothing for lifting or cycling. So if I'm running half marathons I get more credit than when you go for a long bike ride? And now that winter is setting in and I'm back to more weights, I lose out for running less?
I don't know. It all sounds to "iffy" to me to be useful on the individual basis. Kinda like insurers basing rates partly on BMI.
Yeah, this. Steps are easy to measure, and everybody kind of has this "more is better" understanding. Lifting, cycling, rowing, climbing, a lot of things are harder to fit into a spreadsheet.
When my previous job did step challenges with cash prizes, that was an incentive to bike less.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »The number of steps, I don't have a problem with. I share my daily numbers with my employer in the summer, I get a little bit of cash for it.
Heart rate data, though, I feel like there will be some way to misuse that. I have no idea what it would be, but I can't shake the feeling.
I think number of steps is a bad idea, as it focuses on only one aspect. Nothing for lifting or cycling. So if I'm running half marathons I get more credit than when you go for a long bike ride? And now that winter is setting in and I'm back to more weights, I lose out for running less?
I don't know. It all sounds to "iffy" to me to be useful on the individual basis. Kinda like insurers basing rates partly on BMI.
Yeah, this. Steps are easy to measure, and everybody kind of has this "more is better" understanding. Lifting, cycling, rowing, climbing, a lot of things are harder to fit into a spreadsheet.
When my previous job did step challenges with cash prizes, that was an incentive to bike less.
I brought this up as well, but can see the grand goal of this is to get people who don't work out at all to get more active. We did have a number of multisport challenges to encourage those who are more active, but these have very limited participation.1 -
My health insurance also has a voluntary program where you earn money for doing things like wellness exam, and gym visits, and "activities" and you can even track your sleep for $$. There is a limit. I earned the limit in the first month, had a checkup, went to the gym 10 times, did a bunch of quizzes on health stuff, etc.2
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I'd sign up if it was truly a tangible financial benefit. I'd just attach my fitbit to my dog (Santos L Halper) and we're off to the bank!!
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Suddenly I'm getting ads that say I qualify for cheap health insurance because I can ride 50 miles in a week. (That's a pretty low bar, I can do more than that in a day.)0
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Insurance companies already screw us right off the bat. If you're like me and have a good bit of muscularity, BMI states that I'm very overweight and that dictates how much I pay.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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Insurance companies already screw us right off the bat. If you're like me and have a good bit of muscularity, BMI states that I'm very overweight and that dictates how much I pay.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
Yeah, another BS marker used is Total Cholesterol...happens my HDL contributes too greatly (80-125mg/dL) @ times...for ****-sake, my HDL (125mg/dL, labs had to be redone to confirm, lol) was once > LDL & this still put me over Total Cholesterol > 200mg/dL.
BMI is ridiculously flawed for weight lifters & athletes in general1 -
BMI isn't flawed for cyclists, runners, rowers, climbers, thru-hikers - a big part of "athletes in general."5
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Keto_Vampire wrote: »Insurance companies already screw us right off the bat. If you're like me and have a good bit of muscularity, BMI states that I'm very overweight and that dictates how much I pay.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
Yeah, another BS marker used is Total Cholesterol...happens my HDL contributes too greatly (80-125mg/dL) @ times...for ****-sake, my HDL (125mg/dL, labs had to be redone to confirm, lol) was once > LDL & this still put me over Total Cholesterol > 200mg/dL.
BMI is ridiculously flawed for weight lifters & athletes in general
But since less than 15% of the population does resistance training BMI is going to be a decent market for most of the population.2 -
The point is one does not get treated as an individual0
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