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An insurance company wants you to hand over your Fitbit data so it can make more money. Should you?
Replies
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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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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.
We do step challenges twice a year. Non-step based exercises could be converted to steps. I used to get credit for my strength workout.1 -
Keto_Vampire wrote: »The point is one does not get treated as an individual
True, but then again, that is the premise of insurance.2 -
Keto_Vampire wrote: »The point is one does not get treated as an individual
Insurance companies don't treat their customers as unique snowflakes. None of the statistics they keep treat us as individuals.3 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Keto_Vampire wrote: »The point is one does not get treated as an individual
Insurance companies don't treat their customers as unique snowflakes. None of the statistics they keep treat us as individuals.
Can you imagine how much more expensive insurance would be if they had to document and quantify every variable personally for each individual, take them all into thoughtful consideration, and then make a judgement call? And considering how bad they are at making judgement calls about the medical necessity of treatment, I doubt all that effort would garner better results.3 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Keto_Vampire wrote: »The point is one does not get treated as an individual
Insurance companies don't treat their customers as unique snowflakes. None of the statistics they keep treat us as individuals.
Can you imagine how much more expensive insurance would be if they had to document and quantify every variable personally for each individual, take them all into thoughtful consideration, and then make a judgement call? And considering how bad they are at making judgement calls about the medical necessity of treatment, I doubt all that effort would garner better results.
Yep think Lloyd's of London insurancing expensive one of a kind items0 -
As one respondent admitted, fraud becomes easier to rationalize.
Some even put the trackers on their dogs.
Few trackers are actually waterproof and useful for swimming.
I use a Garmin fenix 5X. I swim. A lot. Not many trackers do well with swimming.
I'd never buy or use an apple watch. They wouldn't survive me very long. And I have no Apple products in my home.
Once an insurance company decides to use tracking data for insurance proposes that data becomes a HIPPA protected medical record. That adds cost for compliance. So I'm mor sure how it actually saves money.
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Just look at all the data that we're giving to Underarmour.4
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Added note: thre tends actually seems to be companies moving away from this.
Few recent articles show up regarding the subject. Several more point out that such programs cost more than they save.
A simple approach with low admin cost would be offering Garmin fenix line products if the users agree to join a public group on Garmin Connect. No real names need to be shown.
The company doesn't need expensive HIPPA compliant software. That coversthe cost of offering a useful, rugged watch that does more than just track wrist motion.0 -
To be honest, if someone really wants your information they either have it or can get it (unless you live as a hermit totally off the grid and have for years) and you can't do anything about it.2
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I mentioned earlier that while my step counts seem pretty innocuous, turning everything over seems like a bad idea to me. It just feels like there's something in there (HR perhaps) that can be used against you out of context somehow.
I read how computers can predict neurodegenerative diseases based on mouse usage. Data has value beyond the obvious.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-018-0016-61 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »
But based on the ads I get across the internet, it does seem to be used to try and sell me life insurance base on my mile time 1 -
It does annoy me that it only counts steps. When I go ride my bike I get no fitbit cred for that. Lol.
No I don't like the idea of submitting fitness tracker data to insurance companies. I wouldn't mind submitting my workout summaries but only if there was a way to do it without actually synching it completely. Like if I could get a print out of my weekly exercise report from fitbit and just submit that.
I don't know. I agree with others that I just have a weird feeling about submitting my heart rate, calories, steps, sleep etc etc. No one needs that much info on my life.2 -
mom23mangos wrote: »My insurance company offers this. Both my spouse and I can earn up to $3/day for hitting certain step goals. $1 for walking 500 steps in 5min 6x/day, $1 for walking 3k steps in 30min, and $1 for walking 10k overall steps per day. The $6/day goes towards our HSA.
It's no incentive for my husband. He refuses to wear a step tracker, so I wear two. I'm already pretty active, so it doesn't really change my habits. In fact, it pisses me off because I can have a 2hr gym session and only earn a few steps because I mainly lift and row for cardio. I have to strap it to my ankle when biking. The only thing it encourages me is to do the 30min of higher intensity cardio per day which I get in via playing a virtual reality game most nights. I wish they tracked other things than just steps.
I was wondering why you were wearing two trackers in one of your pictures that you posted lol... seemed a little over the top 0 -
Ugh, the life and health insurance industries disgust me. It’s another ploy to make money and these companies know it. They offer less while taking more. I like the health benefits of walking and being mindful of steps. However, their use of fitness information is just another way to deny benefits or severely increase premiums. 🤦🏾♀️ smh3
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I think this will be an easier sell than if it were a health insurance company. I wouldn't though. Nor would I agree to let my car insurance company track my driving. Not because I'm out breaking land speed records. It just didn't sit well with me to give them more information than necessary.
It's the same reason I don't have a LinkedIn account (or IG, or Snapchat) and keep my FB locked down as much as possible (I really should ditch that, but it's how I keep up with extended family).
If anyone needs me, I'll be the one wearing the tin foil hat
I am, let me tell you. I was driving my little electric golf cart to a meeting and had to pull out of the bike lane to hit the sensor for the traffic light. A guy next to me pulls up in the turn lane in a Maserati. He looked super cranky. I yelled out, “Hey mister—wanna race?!” And he just stared at me dumbfounded. I said “I’ll have you know this little baby can go 0-10 miles per hour in about five minutes. If I’m going downhill. And I get out and push.” He was laughing so hard he missed his green light.
I do speed. About 10-12 miles over the speed limit on a regular basis. I’d be really hesitant to have them track but my speed. But I also drive a Corolla. Not the master of the horsepower, but that’s not why I bought it.3 -
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.
Me, too—non-dominant wrist wearer. I don’t see my tracker count steps that weren’t steps. I have friends who say it goes off while they’re driving. I don’t see the point of bragging about falsifying that stuff or just plain faking it. In the end, you’re just cheating yourself.1 -
Early this year, I got a garmin watch. The company I work for started giving incentives for doing "healthy" things. The first week, I went to give platelets. As they draw from one arm and return to the other, I was asked to take the watch off...and they put it over on the machine.
A little over an hour later...I had over 20,000 steps (machine vibrates as it spins to separate platelets from whole blood). If only I could give platelets every day.
I am not thrilled with sharing all sorts of information with my Health Insurance providers. But they promise me a pretty big savings if I do so (honestly, I already do most of the "healthy" things they track...walk, hike, eat well, weight in check, BP and A1C fine, pulse low, etc). Not a big deal...so far. But what about if my status changes...
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I in a friendly way I compete for steps with friendly online strangers. When I get beat I accuse them of tying the tracker to their dog and throwing balls or to their ceiling fan. All in fun. Yeah, if money is involved insurance companies will eventually get double negative, fraud and giving a discount for it. They have already factored this in.2
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I in a friendly way I compete for steps with friendly online strangers. When I get beat I accuse them of tying the tracker to their dog and throwing balls or to their ceiling fan. All in fun. Yeah, if money is involved insurance companies will eventually get double negative, fraud and giving a discount for it. They have already factored this in.
I've seen several articles regarding companies dropping these programs because the cost of the programs exceeded the savings.
Is guess that the level of fraud is proportional to the price discount offered for participating.
Like the one who admits wearing both hers and her husband's trackers. People putting them in their dogs.
There is absolutely no way any company can eliminate fraud either.
Requiring use of heart rate capable tracker opens them up to ADA law suits because no tracker can track heart rate while swimming. The chest straps that connect to some don't last long and they are only semi reliable for open water swimming. The straps keep flipping over in pool lap swimming.
In time, no company will want to deal with the cost associated with programs requiring them.2
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