Sharing Personal Health and Fitness Data with Health Insurance Providers: An Empirical Study Considering Trust and Risk

Abstract

Digital self-tracking with wearable devices and mobile applications is exceedingly popular. The arising data is not only crucial for individual use but also for parties of the healthcare segment. This paper focuses on German health insurance providers and their expanding call for clients’ personal health and fitness data in a highly complex and regulated environment. As clients need to be willing to share health-related information, an experimental study was conducted, consisting of different modes of reward-based insurance offerings. Trust and perceived risk were assessed as prominent psychological constructs, assessing participants’ willingness to share their personal information. Results show that examined factors such as company prominence or monetary incentives are scarcely influential. However, trust and perceived risk affect an individual’s willingness to share. Taking up the health insurance provider’s perspective, alternative aspects need to be considered to successfully gain consumer trust to collect the clients’ health and fitness information.