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John Hancock Offers Apple Watch Series 3 to Vitality Life Insurance Customers for Just $25

Monday October 23, 2017 7:26 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Life insurance provider John Hancock has announced that new and existing members of its Vitality program can receive an Apple Watch Series 3 with GPS only for an initial payment of just $25 plus tax. Additional fees apply for customers who choose a cellular model or other more expensive models.


The cost of the Apple Watch is actually split up into 24 monthly payments, which can be paid off by walking, running, biking, swimming, or completing various other exercises. Vitality members must earn at least 500 fitness-related Vitality Points per month over two years to avoid owing any of the instalments.

By connecting the Vitality Today app to Apple's Health app and confirming data sharing, customers can earn Vitality Points for Light, Standard, and Advanced Workouts towards the monthly goal. Customers can share steps measured by their iPhone or Apple Watch, as well as active calories from the Apple Watch.

The Vitality program is available with select John Hancock life insurance policies in the United States. The free Apple Watch Series 3 offer will be available starting November 6 everywhere except New York.

John Hancock, owned by Manulife Financial, first started offering Apple Watches to a limited number of members last year. About half of the people who received the device achieved their monthly goals and did not pay for the device, John Hancock senior vice president Brooks Tingle told CNBC.

John Hancock is the first life insurance provider to offer the Apple Watch at a discounted rate to its members. Health insurance provider Aetna offers a similar program to its employees, and may expand it to 23 million customers soon.

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[ 74 comments ]


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ricktat
9 months ago

It looks like they are now:

By connecting the Vitality Today app to Apple’s Health app and confirming that you would like to share your data, you can earn Vitality Points for Light, Standard and Advanced Workouts. You can share steps measured by your iPhone or Apple Watch as well as active calories from Apple Watch.


Worst case you can just let your dog wear it for a week.
Rating: 16 Votes
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Spanky Deluxe
9 months ago
I don't really see a downside here. This looks to be shockingly forward thinking for an American insurance company.
Rating: 11 Votes
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ricktat
9 months ago

A "tracking" device that just gives them diagnostic information from the vehicle including speed, time of day, and hard breaking. Oh the horror.

I am OK with an insurance company reminding me to exercise and giving me an incentive.

I am not OK with Progressive claiming the accident was my fault and increasing my rates because I was doing 2 mph over the speed limit.
Rating: 11 Votes
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tooloud10
9 months ago

I did that with progressive and saved 30% off my annual premium. It was easily the best decision I have made in terms for car insurance. 30% is anything but a small trade, $750 for two cars every 6 months with full coverage.


Sure, that's how it starts. Consider how close we are to this basically being compulsory if it would already cost you about 43% more than you're paying now to avoid it. Soon those not wanting to report their data will be priced out of the market--they just need a few more sheep that care more about saving a few bucks than they do about their privacy and the rest of us won't have a choice.
Rating: 7 Votes
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tooloud10
9 months ago

A "tracking" device that just gives them diagnostic information from the vehicle including speed, time of day, and hard breaking. Oh the horror.


Right, it 'just' gives them 100% more data than they had just a few years ago. The camel's nose is under the tent, as they say, and soon they'll take just a few more pieces of data (say, location) and change the billing so that it's unaffordable to not accept their terms when demanding this data.

Certainly others can see the direction this is going, no? The problem with the "but I have nothing to hide" argument is that once they're seeing all of your data and storing it indefinitely, it's trivially easy for them to find all kinds of correlations should something happen down the road. How many times will it take you going 1-2 mph over the speed limit before your insurance company sees you as a 'habitual speeder'? How many days of not closing all your Apple Watch rings will it take before you're labeled as a 'lethargic customer'?

Folks, you're not getting a 'free' Apple Watch so you can dictate iMessages to your friends, they're doing it because they know it will eventually improve their profits.
Rating: 6 Votes
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hlfway2anywhere
9 months ago

This reminds me of the trend these days where car insurance wants to give you a “discount” on premiums if you agree to install a tracking device in your car. You’re sacrificing your privacy and lining their data-driven pocket books for such a small trade.

A "tracking" device that just gives them diagnostic information from the vehicle including speed, time of day, and hard breaking. Oh the horror.
Rating: 6 Votes
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cerote
9 months ago

A "tracking" device that just gives them diagnostic information from the vehicle including speed, time of day, and hard breaking. Oh the horror.

And any of that info can be used against you if they don’t like it. You can be a great driver and still have issue with each of those but the insurance company doesn’t know what happened. I used to get out of work at 2 am and the number of times a drunk driver has caused a number of these to trigger would cause insurance company to think I was bad driver. And it being 2 am they could suspect me as it.

I am just giving example.

For years for our health insurance if we did these extra things we got discount. I kept saying they will use them against us but coworkers were like yea ok. Took 4 years and now if you don’t meet 3 of the 5 “extra” things you had to pay more.
Rating: 5 Votes
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GrumpyMom
9 months ago

Worst case you can just let your dog wear it for a week.

I was walking my dog a couple of weeks ago on a new longer path. She stopped, rolled over and stuck her feet up in the air and then flattened and refused to move for a solid fifteen minutes. Several people drove by and asked if my dog was dead and if I needed assistance. :eek:

I think I’ll just keep my data away from the insurance companies. :p
Rating: 4 Votes
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Delorean2006
9 months ago

I am OK with an insurance company reminding me to exercise and giving me an incentive.

I am not OK with Progressive claiming the accident was my fault and increasing my rates because I was doing 2 mph over the speed limit.


Geico did something similar to me, I got rear ended, police report even declared it was the other driver's fault and they shot my rates up and blamed the cause of accident on me. I found out Geico likes to do this to make their money back even if the driver wasn't at fault.
Rating: 4 Votes
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redscull
9 months ago

A "tracking" device that just gives them diagnostic information from the vehicle including speed, time of day, and hard breaking. Oh the horror.

I work inside this industry. A LOT more information is collected than that. Not to mention there is no context captured around your hard acceleration and braking, like whether doing so was because you are a “bad driver” (eventual higher premiums) or because you needed to save your life to avoid another traffic incident. Make no mistake, you are selling your privacy for a small sum, and the absolute only reason this feature is made available to you is because the insurance/car company makes an even larger sum off your data.
Rating: 4 Votes

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