“Healthspans” | Gourab Mukherjee, Aktivo | VOX 58

Gourab Mukherjee is co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based insurtech Aktivo Labs. Aktivo provides wellness apps to insurance companies and reinsurers that are meant to help change people’s behavior.

As Mukherjee explains to Jame DiBiasio, about 30% of longevity is within people’s control. Smoking, substance abuse and poor diet, versus good diets, exercise, and getting a decent night’s sleep all impact our health. And digital technology is getting better at turning that into scores that insurers use to price policies.

But are these apps really changing behavior? Are they personalized enough to be effective? As the reward the virtuous, are they making inequality worse, particularly in emerging markets? Mukherjee fields these and other questions about wellness and insurtech.

• Timecodes:
• 0:00 – Gourab Mukherjee, Aktivo
• 1:37 – Longevity and the challenges of “healthspans”
• 3:17 – Demographics of health and at-risk populations in emerging markets
• 5:19 – Impact of Covid-19 on the wellness industry
• 6:13 – Do health apps change user behavior – at scale?
• 9:49 – Personalization and creating scores for individuals
• 14:51 – How insurance companies and reinsurers use these apps
• 17:51 – The challenges of socio-economic inequality and insurance premiums
• 20:43 – Integrity of data and gaming the system
• 22:30 – Aktivo’s funding, and moving from startup to sustainable business