The company will sell loss-limiting insurance, a type that helps cover unexpectedly large claims against employers who self-finance their health benefit policies. Typically, these employers set a threshold for how much they choose to pay based on projected costs, and loss limitation insurance covers claims when the threshold is exceeded.
Verily hopes that by adding its technology and data processing prowess to the equation, it can help employers more accurately assess what kinds of risks they face and eventually intervene to better predict and control employee healthcare spending. individual. With approximately 79% of private employers with 500 or more employees self-financing their health care benefits, Verily is betting that it can get a piece of a very big pie.
Verily did not disclose who his new company’s clients will be, nor did he say whether he has already signed.
But the move could stoke growing concerns about who has access to healthcare data and for what purposes. Insurers generally rely on the data of those they insure to help refine and assess risk. However, Verily has aspirations to go further, for example by integrating data from mobile health devices.
DeepMind Concerns
Another Alphabet unit, the artificial intelligence company DeepMind, was embarking on a historic effort to transform healthcare in the UK when Alphabet raised concerns about it by announcing plans to integrate the company’s healthcare arm with Google.
In 2018, when life insurer John Hancock announced that it would stop underwriting traditional life insurance to sell only interactive policies that track health and fitness data via wearable devices and smartphones, critics questioned whether insurers could eventually use such data to select only the most profitable customers to secure or increase the rates for those who chose not to participate.
Low-Cost Deductible
In the case of Coefficient Insurance, for example, that means taking the same healthcare data available to any insurer and analyzing it more intelligently for a more accurate and hopefully lower-cost deductible, said Iván González, CEO. for North America. for Swiss Re Corporate Solutions.
In the coming years, the company also plans to work to identify specific employees who may be at risk of developing certain conditions and intervene, according to Lee. That could involve, for example, monitoring an employee’s vital signs via their smartphone and setting them up with a virtual trainer to help them manage a chronic condition like diabetes or heart disease.
