[pfranz]

Insurance companies already give away FitBits, have "health fairs," I remember getting a $50 Visa gift card for participating in some health thing at work. These are all in exchange for lower premiums your employer is likely negotiated.

I've heard similar stories about car insurance companies asking to install GPS into your car for discounts or per-mile billing.

I'm not quite sure about the end-game for insurance companies for things that aren't about catching fraud. If we have perfect data then we lose the risk-pooling for insurance--then you're no longer insuring against anything and that seems like a different type of business to me.

[Nasrudith]

The innocent explanation is if they see it as reducing the risk in their pool - the equivalent of it is cheaper to give away flu vaccines than say 25% reduction in flu hospitalizations it is a win-win. Assuming it is always the case is naive however.

However the tracking is suspicious. Insurance companies have a bad habit of trying to never pay what they promise out of greed - despite doing so sawing at the branch they sit upon.

As a rule of thumb if the insurance company learns nothing from what it gives away it is probably trustworthy.