“The Authentic Role an Insurer Can Play as ‘Personal-Risk Manager’,” by JJ Carroll, Advisor Magazine

“A chronic epidemic of “non-communicable diseases” (NCDs) is sweeping the world in growing proportions.  NCDs include things like diabetes and heart disease, which are not “caught” but instead are created by factors that have a lot to do with diet and lifestyle. The fact that people’s choices are contributing to their own ill health makes the explosion in NCDs alarming – and yet likely the greatest opportunity for life and health insurers (and reinsurers!) … To succeed in this space, we do need to demonstrate a genuine desire to help people manage their health risk. To achieve this, we’d be better served breaking free from our existing risk models by embracing an ongoing dynamic-risk assessment that can drive both pricing and health-management activities.”

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):

Social insurance rewards irresponsibility by spreading risk without pricing it. Medicare doesn’t care if you eat right and exercise; it pays no matter how irresponsible you are. Private insurance spreads risk and prices it. Want to smoke? Fine, your life insurance premiums go way up. Fine tuning how private insurance prices risk in order to encourage better health behavior sounds like a pretty good idea to me, in keeping with the basic principles of private insurance.

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