In light of Apple's announcement of HealthKit, Celent's Donald Light notes the lack of “any mention of how health insurers or homeowners insurers could participate in what Apple wants to be a foundational step for connecting networked sensors to data stores, and then using analyses of that data to better price, underwrite, and control losses.”
It seems to me Apple has made the decision to introduce developer facilities for health apps ahead of its own dedicated hardware devices or add-ons. They've seen their competitors' smart watches fail to take off for lack of apps and they know people have been forecasting the rise of wearable computing for decades. Light doesn't mention that Apple has also partnered with Nike and Fitbit, among others, in order to ensure there are real HealthKit apps for consumers to use.
I think insurers should be encouraged by this strategy. Insurers need to see the emergence of a viable population of personal healthcare users before they can begin prototyping new insurance products and services. Apple's approach promises to create a sizeable user population spread over a range of device partners deploying a common standard. Apple will be hoping this standard becomes the de facto industry standard.
Insurers will be looking to match personal health data with broader business data standards for insurance. They don't want to define technical standards for health apps, so they're staying out of the way. And since, by definition, personal health data is tied to an individual human being, bringing these new data sets into the business domain should not be too complex. Celent
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