Insurance healthcare Gamification

With Insurance Healthcare Gamification, healthcare payers move from a transactional relationship with customers to integrating services and products into their everyday lives while shifting from paying out claims to preventing claims. In the medical insurance industry, gamification can build brand awareness, and the reciprocal relationship can be used to grow customer engagement and loyalty. Simultaneously, rewards reinforce desired behaviour, and other gamification mechanics allow users to chart their progress and share this with others. In turn, this increases awareness and participation for customers and their networks and promotes the insurance brand as being particularly relevant to an emerging generation of customers.  

Using digital enablers delivered via IoT-connected or ‘smart’ devices encourages a target behaviour. Incentives, such as points, rewards, and a leader-board, reinforce that behaviour.  

Millennials and Gen Z (i.e., those born after 1980) are becoming most of the population. This group is most likely to participate in games and cooperate with insurers: a win-win outcome. They are at ease responding to triggers to prompt or change target behavior, delivered through smartphones and wearables. Gamification presented in a user-friendly interface for this integration level particularly appeals to a younger (and healthier) customer base.   

How it works 

Gaming techniques are already used to great effect by platforms such as LinkedIn. Gamification mechanics encourage members to complete their profile information, promoting engagement and encouraging users to stay active on the site and earn badges.  

For the healthcare payers, gamification techniques, are used to motivate members towards a healthier lifestyle. Powered by appropriate rewards plans, and a superior digital experience, the program ensures year-round communication while providing tips and initiatives to promote physical activity and awareness. The mechanical components of gamification can create personalised goals based on the member’s profile, such as age and BMI. 

Connected communication 

The healthcare gamification mobile app uses the Internet of Things (IoT) to gather and deliver data from a smart bottle to the mobile app. The app also connects to smart wearable devices such as smart bands and watches which provide information on physical activities, calories and sleep patterns. Based on personal metrics, the app sets goals to reach on a daily or weekly basis. Points are awarded based on this data; for example, when a set goal of water consumption is reached.  

Rewards are redeemed in a Market Place, where other merchants also operate. Choices and rewards can guide customers to the desired behaviour practices that further promotes healthcare choices and the insurance brand. 

Benefits to healthcare payers 

Insurance providers can increase customer engagement and loyalty by using the data to personalise plans and attract new business opportunities.  

Other benefits are a reduction in claim ratios and even preventing claims. Take the example of managing insurance members with kidney stones. Kidney stones can be treated by drinking more water, and a smart water bottle can be used to measure the water consumed accurately. A delight to the healthcare payer and the customer alike! 

Gamification apps also lower the cost of maintaining the customer relationship because communication is continuous throughout the year instead of restricted to an annual enrolment event. 

In addition, brand recall is improved. Gamification builds awareness and improves the brand’s perception, intertwined rewards with policy period improves retention, reducing sales and marketing costs. 

Leveraging valuable gamification data collected from the app to better implement customers profiling, activates better risk assessment, and provides the ability to offer customised and competitive services and policies.  

How to build a successful gamification strategy 

It takes time and considerable planning effort to implement a successful Insurance Healthcare Gamification strategy. After the player roles and goals have been defined, consultants, Deloitte, identified three main drivers: Fun, Friends and Feedback. 

The games should be enjoyable and promote physical activity, boost health and reduce stress. They should trigger motivational competition and create challenges amongst friends. Sharing progress makes users feel accountable and helps them to stick to the program. It also raises awareness of the project and encourages others to take part. 

Instant feedback and healthcare tips educate users on healthy (or unhealthy) habits. Rewards raise user interest and motivation levels, while documenting activities, allows users to customise profiles and track their personal history. 

INGO Health 

The components required for a gamification strategy are varied and complex. CME’s INGO Health solution is a comprehensive, end-to-end healthcare rewards program, combining software, app and IoT smart devices. 

A microservices architecture accelerates time-to-market with higher fault tolerance and easier maintenance. The cloud-ready solution can be deployed on private or public clouds to ensure always-on services that can scale up as healthcare insurance requirements grow as adoption increases. 

INGO Health app brings the best gaming techniques, with excellent UX, that drives real engagement. INGO Health smart water bottle provides water consumption data. The app connects to smart bands and watches to collect physical activity, calories and sleep patterns. 

INGO Health smart water bottle offers particular advantages. It is engineered to precisely track activity over a period of time to show water intake habits and suggest changes to daily activities as a means to boost health and earn redeemable points.  

Being able to precisely monitor water intake with rewards to reinforce the desired behavior, eliminates “cheating” or guesstimates, to build an accurate picture of desired behavior that can be adopted.  

The offering also includes an established Market Place with an ecosystem of companies for multiple rewards and choices.  

As digitization increases and connectivity via the IoT ever more uses AI to manage large data volumes, gamification provides an excellent member experience and a proven business model to increase customer engagement, reduce claims and achieve a wider reach.