At Lyfery, we understand that everyone’s lifestyle is unique. That’s why, when offering life insurance, we assess each individual’s health risk personally and adjust their monthly premiums accordingly. For this, we use Lyfery’s specially developed health behavior scoring model. However, we emphasize that this is still a preliminary model, which we plan to significantly improve.
What lifestyle and health behavior factors do we currently consider?
Smoking: The WHO names the tobacco epidemic as one of the world’s most dangerous. Smoking causes 50% of all preventable deaths among smokers—half of these through atherosclerotic heart disease (1). We support our clients in living tobacco-free lives.
Alcohol consumption: Researchers have reached a clear conclusion: any amount of alcohol is harmful to health—the less, the better. Lyfery’s chief scientist Dr. Taavi Tillman states: “Even people who consume just two glasses of wine a week still have a slightly higher risk of developing certain cancers compared to non-drinkers. /…/ Furthermore, moderate red wine consumption does not protect against heart disease (as was previously mistakenly believed), but rather increases the likelihood of developing it.” In addition, alcohol raises the risk of depression and anxiety (2).
Number of daily steps: The average number of steps per day is crucial for reducing high blood pressure, obesity, and mortality (3). Studies have shown that even increasing daily steps by just 1,000 can help lower both mortality and cardiovascular diseases (4).
Time spent on more intensive physical activity per week: Regular exercise that makes you sweat is a key part of maintaining your health. In addition to reducing the risk of disease, it provides immediate benefits: exercise improves mood and sleep and may reduce appetite. Striving for variety is important: it’s recommended to do both strength and endurance training (e.g., “cardio”), as well as stretching and balance exercises (5).
In addition, it’s possible to improve your health behavior score by using certain health services, such as the HeBA Clinic’s health audit and MinuDoc’s health counseling, which help mitigate personal health risks. Both HeBA and MinuDoc are our partners—their services can be chosen when joining life insurance.
While no questionnaire fully captures an individual’s behavior, this model is sufficiently comprehensive and evidence-based to provide Lyfery clients with a reliable risk assessment. In the next post, we will also talk a bit about the future plans for the health behavior model.
The Exciting Future of Lyfery’s Health Behavior Model: Seven Key Ways to Maintain Your Health
This article has been reviewed by our medical consultant, Dr. Kristiina Paju.
References
Visseren, F. L. J., et al. 2021 ESC Guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice: Developed by the Task Force for cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice with representatives of the European Society of Cardiology and 12 medical societies With the special contribution of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology (EAPC). European Heart Journal. 2021; 42 (34): (3227–3337) Link: 2021 ESC Guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice | European Heart Journal | Oxford Academic
Maailma Terviseorganisatsioon. No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health. 2023. Loetud 4.10.24. Link: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.
Bassett, D. R., et al. Step Counting: A Review of Measurement Considerations and Health-Related Applications. Sports Med. 2017; 47(7): 1303–1315. Link: Step Counting: A Review of Measurement Considerations and Health-Related Applications – PMC
Hall, K. S., et al. Systematic review of the prospective association of daily step counts with risk of mortality, cardiovascular disease, and dysglycemia. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2020 Jun 20;17(1):78. Link: Systematic review of the prospective association of daily step counts with risk of mortality, cardiovascular disease, and dysglycemia
NIH National Institute on Aging. Four Types of Exercise Can Improve Your Health and Physical Ability. 2021. Link: Four Types of Exercise Can Improve Your Health and Physical Ability
The project “Technological development, testing, and demonstration of components of a healthy lifestyle scoring model” has received €34,580 in development grant support.
As part of the project, a model was developed to assess healthy lifestyle habits, enabling the cost-effective offering of life insurance that supports healthier living. The goal is to create a scalable, health-promoting product that can be expanded across Europe.
As a result of the project, the Lyfery app now measures lifestyle-related mortality risk on an individual customer basis.