Insurers could play a vital role in helping incentivise lower-risk behaviours in customers, according to AIA New Zealand, which said that a “multi-sector” approach is needed to help change the behaviours responsible for the vast majority of deaths in New Zealand.
An AIA report recently showed that over 90% of deaths can be traced back to non-communicable diseases, with factors like inactivity, poor diet and smoking playing a significant role in their development. However, head of research and wellbeing Candice Smith said that a knowledge gap isn’t the issue - rather, it’s often a lack of incentive and opportunity, with the healthier choice rarely being the ‘easy’ choice.
As an example, Smith noted that cities with better infrastructure for outdoor activity generally had a more active population compared to cities that didn’t. With this in mind, she said that the future approach should be for the government, insurers and other sectors to work together on incentivising healthier choices, and to use studies provided by researchers and insurers to inform strategy.
“I think our report really reflects the necessity for a multi-sectoral approach to changing some of these behaviours that we see,” Smith told Insurance Business.
“I don’t think you’d find many people who don’t understand what constitutes a healthy diet, or that physical activity is good for you, and that smoking and excess alcohol intake is bad for you. So it’s not that there is a massive knowledge gap - and yet, people are still making poor behavioural choices.”
“If people know these things and are still choosing these behaviours, then that speaks to the fact that we, as a government and as a country, need to make the healthy choice the easy choice,” she said.
“Another key reason why we felt it was an important time to amplify this piece of research is because of the gap between the understanding of those behaviours, and the understanding of how they contribute to non-communicable diseases.
“I think some people don’t make the link between something they do today, and the changes of something like diabetes, or just a lower quality of life in the future.”
Smith noted that the disparity between perceived health and actual health can also be an issue, and that humans in general are prone to ‘hyperbolic discounting’ - that is, choosing immediate rewards over rewards that may emerge many years into the future.
She said that this is a bias that AIA’s Vitality programme is looking to change, and that by providing more ‘immediate’ rewards for healthy behaviours, the hope is to incentivise choices that will ultimately have an impact on customer heath long into the future.
Smith noted that education is also a significant piece of the puzzle, as global research has shown most people believe that they are healthier than they really are.
“Part of the reason for that is that these ‘chronic’ diseases are typically associated with old age, and people predominantly do something called ‘hyperbolic discounting’, where we see ourselves as invincible in the present,” Smith explained.
“Eighty-two per cent (82%) of people globally believe that they’re of above average health, and that’s not a possibility at all. So I think people don’t recognise that things like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory conditions and certain cancers are quite actively impacted by the choices that we make today, and that’s something that really came through in our research.”
“Opportunity and surroundings are also important,” she said.
“When we launched Vitality in New Zealand, we looked at a piece of research that was done at the University of Auckland which looked at the impact of the infrastructure and facilities of various cities on causing people to be more physically active.”
“There is something to be said for individual accountability, but there is also a massive opportunity for insurers here - and that’s what we’ve seen with the Vitality programme,” Smith concluded.
“We need to incentivise these behaviours, and we need to make it something that people are rewarded for today. That’s really been where the Vitality programme has found its success, and we can then observe the shifts based on those types of programmes and utilise that information further.”
