Some life insurance companies offer wellness programs to help customers improve their health and well-being with free subscriptions to apps and other rewards. It’s a small price to pay for insurers who view a healthier policyholder as less risky to insure. And a wellness program can reward you for making progress on your existing fitness goals with discounts to your premiums.
What are life insurance wellness programs and how do they work?
Some life insurance companies may offer a discount on premiums and other rewards for hitting health and wellness goals, such as maintaining annual checkups, attending online health seminars and getting your flu shot. Insurers may also issue you personal health goals and give you a free fitness tracking device to log your progress.
Why your health is important to insurers
Your health is often tied to the cost of your life insurance because it plays a huge role in determining how long you might live and how risky you are to insure. The healthier you are, the longer you’re likely to live — which reduces the chance that your insurer will have to pay out a life insurance claim.
That means a wellness program may be an opportunity for you to get a better deal on your monthly premium than you could when you originally signed up for the policy.
Which life insurance companies offer wellness programs?
Only a few insurers currently offer wellness programs, and the discounts and awards vary widely by insurer.
Haven Life
With a Haven Life policy, you can get an add-on to its term life policies, called Haven life plus. This add-on includes free or discounted access to services meant to increase your health and wellness, including:
Trust & will service. An online service to write your last will and testament, plus a year of free updates.
Fitness app subscription. An annual subscription to Aaptiv fitness app that lets you access workouts with an AI assistant to help keep you on track.
Sleep app access. You’ll have access to timeshifter, a sleep app that helps to keep jetlag at bay.
Document storage service. LifeSite is a document storage service for you and five members of your family to keep your most important documents safe.
CVS clinic discount. A 15% discount on a CVS MinuteClinic visit.
John Hancock
John Hancock has two versions of its vitality health program. With Vitality Go, the basic version of the program, recording your daily healthy habits earns you rewards such as savings on healthy foods and health-related products, as well as free magazine subscriptions to healthy living publications. And the program is free with your John Hancock life insurance policy.
Vitality Plus is a rider that costs you a little more each month, but can end up saving you up to 15% on your annual premiums and comes with perks, like a free Amazon Halo or Fitbit with a free three-year subscription, and discounts on travel, healthy eating, health devices and certain retail stores.
Global Atlantic
With a Global Atlantic life insurance policy, you can get a wellness program through a free wellness for life rider. This add-on offers you discounts on your premiums that multiply starting in year three of your coverage and compound to year 20, where the discount plateaus for the life of the policy. To earn the discount, you have to go to the doctor at least every year and maintain a set weight range that is based on your weight when you sign up for the policy.
How to apply for reconsideration
If your premiums are higher than you expected due to a medical issue that you can correct, you may have the option to ask your insurer to reconsider your premium once you’ve improved your health in that area. And the process might be easier than you think.
Wait the appropriate amount of time. Your policy likely stipulates the number of months or years you have to wait before you can request reconsideration, like one year.
Schedule a new paramedical exam. Be prepared to not only show improvement with a new medical exam, but that you have a plan in place to sustain your new health status.
Wait for your new rates. Your insurer takes your new medical information back through its underwriting policy to assess your premiums. Typically, there is a limit on how much you can save, such as a maximum classification you can get through reconsideration, but you may also be protected from having your premiums go up in the process.
Keep in mind that you may have to pay for the new medical exam and any other expenses out of pocket, depending on your insurer. And there’s no guarantee your premiums will decrease. If they don’t, consider shopping around to see if you could save money with a different insurer.
What to watch out for
These programs can offer a lot of benefits, but make sure you’re protecting yourself in the process.
A new medical exam may be required. Insurers typically require that you sit through a new health screening before you start trying to meet new fitness goals to make sure your goals are doctor approved. And even though the current wellness programs on the market claim that your premiums can’t be affected by new health information discovered, make sure that stays true for any new program added in the future before you join.
Your privacy may be at stake. If the program forces you to use an app or other online method of showing your progress, take the time to independently review the app’s privacy policy to ensure you’re protecting your health data.
May not qualify for program discounts. You may not qualify for the discounts offered through your health program if the goals are outside your physical abilities. Read the fine print before you pay for a rider you may be unable to use.
Bottom line
A life insurance wellness program can be a great way to earn rewards for making progress on your health and fitness goals. But the promise of a future discount and rewards tied to a rider that you pay for may not be enough to ensure you’re getting the best deal. Taking the time to compare life insurance quotes is the best way to make sure you get the coverage you need for the best possible price.
Heather Petty is a personal finance writer at Finder, specializing in home and personal loans. After falling victim to a disreputable mortgage broker when buying her first home, she’s on a mission to help readers avoid similar experiences when managing their own finances. A self-proclaimed word nerd, her writing and analysis has been featured on MSN, Credit.com and MediaFeed, among other top media. Heather previously worked as a technical writer and editor for the casino systems industry and is an internationally published young adult mystery author. She earned a BA in English with a minor in journalism from the University of Nevada, Reno.
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