Munich Re’s global medical team recently collaborated on a wide-ranging thought leadership project intended to help life insurers better understand and navigate the most prevalent emerging medical trends and risks across five critical topics: AI in Healthcare, Improving Cancer Outcomes, Prevention, Obesity, and Climate Change. 

The Prevention chapter focuses on a significant transformation facing life and health insurers: the need to shift their focus from settling claims to preventing them from arising in the first place. To succeed in this new era, insurers must develop effective prevention strategies that address the root causes of morbidity and mortality.

• Understand the target population: To develop effective prevention strategies, insurers must delve into their portfolio to gain a deeper understanding of their policyholders’ unique characteristics, risk factors, and health trends. Since the majority of policyholders are healthy, insurers should prioritize primary prevention strategies, which involve intervening before a disease or condition occurs.

• Focus on high-risk areas: Insurers should prioritize prevention efforts on the most significant health risks and claims drivers, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental health conditions, and address the key lifestyle factors that contribute to these conditions, such as obesity, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and tobacco use.

• Precise prevention: By developing tailored risk profiles, insurers can create targeted interventions that address the unique needs of individual policyholders, thereby enhancing health literacy and mitigating specific risk factors to achieve improved prevention outcomes.

• Scale prevention through technology: Insurers can leverage digital solutions to amplify their prevention efforts, reaching a wider audience and streamlining healthcare journeys through automated processes, data analytics, and real-time feedback.