Life Insurers Next Source of Health Data: Wearables

In this article by Jessica Davis on InformationWeek, MassMutual’s Gareth Ross, Head of Enterprise Technology and Customer Experience, traces the growth of the company’s development and work using data science and advanced analytics to improve its underwriting and risk assessment capabilities. The initial team of 6 people has grown to about 100 members today.

Insurance carriers have large amounts of data on their insured individuals stored in their records and files from years of underwriting life and health insurance policies. MassMutual undertook the effort to compile this historical data so it can be analyzed, modeled and tested in an effort to improve their underwriting and risk assessment decision making.

As companies increasingly use data science tools and techniques to refine their underwriting and assessment models more sources of health data will be needed. In the future, wearable devices, such as Fitbit and Apple Watch, may be a potential source of data to support these efforts, provided any legal and regulatory issues can be addressed.

Click here to read the story.