New Life and Annuity Deals Bring Wellness Into Fold

Life insurers could use mergers and acquisitions to expand into the life extension business.

Capgemini, a consulting firm, recently predicted in a trend forecast review that "wellness as a service" efforts could lead to M&A activity as well as alliances.

John Hancock has an established wellness program alliance with Vitality. Capgemini cited Prudential Financial's recent move to use a Vitality-based wellness program in Latin America as an example of an interesting new life insurance company wellness effort.

Samantha Chow, Capgemini's global leader for the life, annuity and benefits sector, said in a recent email interview that a wellness-based strategy is an example of an approach for supporting clients throughout their entire lives.

"Consumers are drawn towards bundling not just for savings, but rather for the convenience of having everything in one place," Chow said. "Take the workplace as an example. Today, we see multiple providers for employee benefits, investments, insurance: auto, home and life. How can we consolidate these services?"

What it means: Pressure to offer cradle-to-grave solutions may intensify.

The wellness strategy: Chow said the wellness-based efforts are partly related to younger people's interest in living longer and partly to carriers' interest in promoting financial health.

"Carriers that recognize the connection between the two — blending health and financial wellness seamlessly — in creating an all-inclusive healthy lifestyle are going to be very appealing to consumers," she said.

Chow gave a new Guardian Life product that combines whole life, disability insurance and long-term care insurance as an example of an all-generations product.

Adding wellness could make it even more of an all-generation product, and offering the product at the worksite could hold prices down, by leading younger people to begin paying premiums for the product early in their careers, Chow said.

Chow sees new teams, including some with leaders from the retail and consumer packaged-goods industries, developing the new strategies and the new deals.

One challenge: Veteran life and annuity issuer leaders may be slow to buy into the newcomers' proposals.

Another challenge: The new leaders may struggle with the difficulty of changing something as complicated as the life insurance industry.

Samantha Chow. Credit: Capgemini