Personal wearables and life insurance

Personal wearables can be a great way to help you maintain a healthier lifestyle. These popular devices give you valuable health information that you can use to help improve your overall health and fitness.

But could wearing a fitness tracker have a positive impact on your life insurance?

Written by

Helen Phipps

Insurance comparison expert

Reviewed by

Kara Gammell

Finance expert

Last Updated

18 MAY 2022

3 min read

What are personal wearables?

A personal wearable is an electronic device that you can wear on your body to collect data about how much you move and your general health. These devices can help you monitor some aspects of your health and fitness levels.

The most popular personal wearables are fitness trackers. You wear them on your wrist in the same way as a watch or bracelet, and they use sensors and GPS to keep track of your physical activity. Most fitness trackers sync with an app that you can download onto your smartphone.

Personal wearables are typically used every day to track and measure:

Your steps
Your weight
Calories burned
Sleep patterns
Heart rate

Some devices also track exercises related to particular sports, including running, swimming and workout sessions.

Another popular feature is an ‘inactivity alert’ - your device will alert you if you’ve been inactive for too long.

What are the benefits of wearables?

Wearable tech won’t magically make you healthy. But fans of the devices believe they can help you stay motivated and encourage you to maintain a healthier lifestyle.

Aside from people using them to monitor their own health, personal wearables are being distributed by healthcare professionals to some patients. In 2019, the NHS gave wearable tech that monitors exercise levels to people at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. It also has its own fitness tracker and training programme apps – Couch to 5K and Active 10 – that you can download onto your smartphone.

Could personal wearables impact life insurance?

Smart tech isn’t just being used in homes or cars, it’s been a feature of health and life insurance products for a while.

Insurance is all about calculating risk, so it isn’t surprising that life insurance providers are showing interest in what wearables and other tech can do.

Vitality, for example, is offering discounts on wearables that you can find on the high street to customers on eligible life insurance and health insurance plans, and reward points when the trackers are linked to their insurance profile.

But just owning a personal wearable won’t, in itself, have a direct impact on your life insurance premium.

When you apply for life insurance, your insurance provider will ask a number of questions relating to your health and lifestyle.

These could include questions about:

Whether you smoke
Your alcohol consumption
Height and weight
Physical activity
Whether you take part in dangerous sports
Your occupation
Your family health history
Pre-existing medical conditions.

Used correctly, personal wearables could potentially motivate you to:

Lose weight
Eat more healthily
Be more active
Sleep better

If a personal wearable helps you to maintain a healthier lifestyle or helps you show that you’re trying to improve your health or manage a health condition, it may result in a more affordable life insurance premium.