The collaboration aims to enhance pricing accuracy and risk segmentation by moving beyond traditional health indicators – such as BMI, cholesterol, and family history – which often overlook key behavioral and lifestyle factors. Klarity’s risk scoring model uses over 12 years of longitudinal data, comprising more than six million life years, to generate individual mortality scores from third-party wearable devices that track sleep, heart rate, activity levels, and more.
Will Cooper, Founder and CEO of Klarity, said the partnership validates the potential of wearable-driven data models in modern underwriting. “By integrating AI-driven insights with behavioral health data, we’ve created a model that improves underwriting precision and strengthens customer trust,” he said. Cooper noted that the collaboration with WTW “shows how traditional methods can misclassify risk” and opens the door to “more dynamic, inclusive underwriting.”
To test the model’s predictive power, WTW applied it to U.S. population data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The results demonstrated a marked improvement in risk classification accuracy compared to traditional methods. The model successfully identified applicants whose health risks had been either overstated or understated using conventional measures. For example, non-smokers previously categorized as “residual” risk based on BMI alone were more accurately reclassified into “preferred” or even “best preferred” tiers when their wearable data was taken into account – potentially qualifying them for significantly lower premiums. Conversely, applicants who appeared healthy on paper but exhibited negative behavioral patterns, such as poor sleep or inactivity, were flagged for reassessment.
“Life insurers now have a unique opportunity to apply real-world health data to better reflect individual lifestyles,” said Mary Bahna-Nolan, Senior Director of Insurance Consulting & Technology at WTW. She added that Klarity’s model “demonstrates how predictive analytics and wearable data can revolutionize mortality risk assessment – unlocking more accurate pricing and more engaging customer experiences.”
With more than 62 million U.S. consumers using fitness trackers in 2024—a figure projected to surpass 92 million by 2029 – the opportunity to harness wearable data for underwriting continues to grow. WTW and Klarity’s partnership signals a broader shift in the insurance industry toward using dynamic, real-time insights to support both customer-centric and data-driven strategies.
