How to transform an old fashioned Insurer into a Carrier like Oscar, fast and at low cost. Healthfront: a killer application for connected health insurance based on three strategic pillars.

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How to transform an old fashioned Insurer
into a Carrier like Oscar, fast and at low cost
Healthfront: a killer application for connected health
insurance based on three strategic pillars
The Internet of Things (IoT) is creating enormous opportunities that insurers can leverage to
provide a better customer experience while simultaneously improving their profitability. In
particular, insurers have a tremendous chance to upgrade their role in the health segment from
a simple "payer" to an active "player" in the overall user experience cycle.
The motor insurance telematics experience in Italy shows that this is possible. There, products
linked to a connected insurance value proposition have already reached a market penetration of
15% and are now adopted by most insurers.
In the health space, one of the better known initiatives is Vitality, the programme created by the
South-African Discovery Holding. Vitality, through wearables and an effective reward system,
enables insurance partners to attract younger categories of clients, steer customer behavior and
increase client retention. However, this and similar efforts to influence customers’ behaviour —
persuading them to exercise more, eat healthier food, or take their medications, for example—
seem to have limited success. Some experts claim that’s because customers don’t trust advice
from insurers, they don’t have access to information, or they just aren’t paying attention.
But there might be more reasons than this. Customers may struggle to perceive the exceptional
utility they expect in exchange of constantly wearing an activity tracking device and sharing their
personal information.
Things may change if customers are able to access a richer suite of solutions through a unique
user experience. Oscar, the NY based insurance company financed by Google (and whose value
has been recently estimated at nearly 2 billion Dollars), has launched additional medical and
health related services to help clients save money and identify their best options. Using Oscar or
its equivalent, customers can contrast prices of different medical providers or medical doctors,
as well as compare prices of medical treatments by looking at different pharmaceutical products.
In addition, Oscar provides a free call-back and remote health advice (messaging) system to

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reduce the number of unnecessary consultations, and therefore limits spending related to first
time medical visits.
These broader experiments are very promising. Not only do they offer a richer solution to
customers, but more importantly they also position the insurer not just as the payer, but as the
trusted advisor who provides access to an integrated system of lifestyle products and services as
well as optimized care options.
At DigitalTech International we believe that it will be crucial for the sustainable adoption of
health insurance telematics to transform the nature of the customer – insurer interaction and
create a seamless customer experience. That’s why we have developed Healthfront, a mobile
platform designed around three strategic pillars:
 Mobile first: individuals spend over three hours a day, fragmented in hundreds of micro-
moments, on their smartphones, which have become an extension of our personal
identity.
 Eco-system orientation: in the IoT space, multiple and specific capabilities are necessary
to deliver a comprehensive solution to users. A third party eco-system coordinator can
create an effective and simultaneously efficient network of coherent modules.
 Insurer focus: Healthfront is a modular and “white label” mobile app that can integrate
any already existing solution fast and at low cost. In addition, insurers can select from a
wide range of modular services to generate a unique and customised mobile solution
from dozens of possible combinations in line with their specific business objectives.
Health insurance plays a critical role in a growing number of people’s life. It’s time it capitalizes
on its role and gets the recognition it deserves. To this end, insurers need to make sure that
troublesome and cost-ineffective ways of delivering healthcare are a thing of the past.