As health tech innovation leads to better diagnostics, it is also driving changes in the Life and Health insurance space, so that patients have better diagnostics – and outcomes, especially in cancer – currently the world’s number one cause of mortality.
Insurtech Insights USA 2024 in New York saw Marc Giguere, President & CEO, US (Life and Health) at Munich Re, Dr. Joshua Ofman, President of Grail and Sears Merritt, CIO of MassMutual discuss the latest technologies and its impact on customers, public health, products and strategy in an expert panel entitled ‘Redefining What Life Insurance Can Do’ moderated by Megan Kuczynski.
Ofman, who launched his career as an MD and then pivoted to the healthtech space after recognising the benefits that innovative diagnostics can have on patient outcomes, described the current mortality rates from cancer in sobering terms – and how GRAIL’s groundbreaking diagnostic solution, Galleri, can already detect 50 types of cancer while they are still asymptomatic.
He told a packed, live audience: “We are [currently] only finding about 14% of the incident cancers in elevated risk adults through that screening. Most cancer is found too late when symptoms have already presented and it’s already metastasized from its local origin. We have certain screening tests that are available today, but they’re not doing nearly enough. Grail…looks for signals of cancer in your blood and can tell you where in the body that cancer signal comes from [including] many of the deadly cancers like pancreatic, esophageal, ovarian aggressive deadly cancers.”
He continued: “But if you add Galleri to the screening programme, it becomes much more efficient. When you can find cancer early, it costs somewhere between five and 10 times less to treat than a late stage cancer. And the outcomes are much better.”
Life Insurers should adopt new diagnostic tools and educate customers
Merrit confirmed that MassMutual has been navigating significant changes in wellness and precision medicine as they continue to converge, and that despite initially struggling to engage customers in pilot schemes to pressure-test new offerings, today, the interest is skyrocketing.
“We’ve been working on wellness for a number of years, and the first time we did it and offered it to our policyholders, nobody signed up, not one [person]… And so that kicked off a big research study for us to understand why.”
He said they discovered lack of awareness was discouraging customer participation, but explained that climate has now made a u-turn in terms of interest. “You look at some of the results that we have started to experience in recent years where we’re seeing exponential uptake and exponential interest in wanting to engage with these types of services through a life insurer.”
He also described the shift as a ‘big social change’, saying that consumers are now open-minded enough to want to understand how new capabilities can benefit them. They also recognise that the healthcare system can evolve and use things differently.
“When you put those two things together, combined with the technology, there’s just tremendous economic impact to everyone, insurers, reinsurers, policy holders, companies developing these brand new things. And there’s social impact too because we’re saving people’s lives, we’re helping people live longer and giving them access to services like life insurance that helps them plan for the future.”
Results-driven uptake following wellness solution introduction
Giguere pointed out that insurers now have the potential to help save lives and this factor will be a competitive edge against other companies that don’t explore better diagnostic and wellness technologies, he said, citing data from Munich Re’s own research reports and programmes.
“As part of the programmes we’ve been doing with insurance companies, we’ve had over 50 positives. So that is 50 people that didn’t know they had cancer – but they found out because of their carriers [offering diagnostic solutions].
“All the results so far exceed what we thought. So this is something that the life insurance industry can do. We believe the mortality savings more than offset the cost of the test. And then you get all the other positives that go with it… As we have more companies [that] show how successful they are, as more producers tell their carriers, ‘I lost this sale because MassMutual gives this test and I don’t, or John Hancock or whomever,’ it’s going to prompt more companies to do it because we know that that’s going to work.”
Merrit agreed, saying that by offering GRAIL’s Galleri test, MassMutual had seen an upswing in customer responses that was unexpectedly high. “You look at some of the results that we have started to experience in recent years where we’re seeing exponential uptake and exponential interest in wanting to engage with these types of services through a life insurer. Those changes are happening right before us, literally by the month we’ve offered Galleri. Historically through this pilot, we had uptakes that exceeded our expectations.”
Life insurers can turn the tide on Cancer outcomes and other chronic conditions
The potential for combining diagnostic technologies with policies, and providing transformative solutions for customers is not only limited to cancer, but many other health concerns as well, concluded Giguere. “Companies are also thinking about how this could work with other products,” he said. “We have to ask ourselves ‘How could this work with long-term care? How could this work with annuities, disability? How can we help people live longer, healthier lives?’ Cancer is a big example [of what’s possible].”
He added: “I’m very optimistic about what the industry is doing right now and I think it’s just going to keep accelerating.”
Reporting by Joanna England
