Services Economy with Fexingo: Healthcare, Finance, and the Modern Service Sector

Episode 104 of Services Economy with Fexingo takes a deep dive into how health insurers are increasingly accessing data from fitness wearables like Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Garmin. Lucas and Luna explore the specific ways insurers use step counts, heart rate variability, and sleep scores to adjust premiums and incentivize healthy behavior. They break down the key programs—such as John Hancock's Vi...

Episode 103 of Services Economy with Fexingo dives into a surprising new data source health insurers are tapping: your smart home energy usage. As utility companies deploy smart meters and home energy monitors become common, insurers are using patterns like when you turn on lights, when your HVAC runs, and even what appliances you use to build health risk profiles. Lucas and Luna discuss a real ex...

Episode 102 of Services Economy with Fexingo digs into a surprising new frontier of health insurance data collection: your pet's veterinary records. Lucas and Luna explore how insurers are purchasing data from pet insurance companies, microchip registries, and even pet food subscription services to get a window into owners' own health risks. They cite a 2025 report from the Consumer Financial Prot...

Episode 101 of Services Economy with Fexingo dives into a new frontier of health insurance data collection: your smartphone screen time. Lucas and Luna explore how insurers are partnering with digital wellness apps and device manufacturers to access data on phone unlocks, app usage, and even ambient light sensor readings. They focus on a specific case: a 2025 pilot by a major insurer that correlat...

Episode 100 of Services Economy with Fexingo: Lucas and Luna explore how health insurers are using your Facebook likes, Instagram follows, and Twitter retweets to build predictive health profiles. They walk through how a 2013 Cambridge Analytica-era study on likes and personality traits has been repurposed by actuarial firms, why a single 'like' for 'I Love Being a Mom' can correlate with higher r...

In this episode of Services Economy, Lucas and Luna explore the next frontier in health insurance data collection: grocery store loyalty cards. They examine how insurers are partnering with data brokers like IRI and Nielsen to analyze purchasing patterns — from cereal choices to snack brands — and using that data to build health risk scores. The hosts discuss the specific algorithms that tie thing...

Episode 98 dives into the latest frontier of health insurer data mining: your social media photos. Lucas and Luna explore how companies like Allstate and startups such as Lapetus are using AI to analyze facial images, body shapes, and even background objects in your Instagram or Facebook posts to estimate health risks and adjust premiums. They discuss a 2024 study showing that insurers can predict...

Episode 97 of Services Economy digs into a quietly growing data practice: health insurers analyzing credit card reward category spending to build health risk scores. Lucas and Luna walk through how a major payer might see your airline miles, cash-back on fast food, or grocery rewards as behavioral health signals more granular than a credit score. They trace the logic from a 2025 working paper by h...

Health insurers are increasingly using employment history data to assess risk and set premiums, a practice that raises privacy and fairness concerns. This episode examines how companies like Verisk and LexisNexis provide insurers with detailed work histories, including job titles, tenure, and salary estimates. Lucas and Luna discuss a recent study showing that individuals with shorter job tenure p...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into the emerging practice of health insurers using your social media shopping behavior to assess risk and set premiums. They explore how companies like Meta and TikTok share purchase data with data brokers, who then sell it to insurers. With a focus on a specific case—how a woman in Texas saw her premiums spike after buying plus-size clothing on Instagram—they...

Episode 94 of Services Economy with Fexingo: Lucas and Luna reveal how health insurers are now tracking your job changes via LinkedIn profile updates to adjust premiums in real time. They walk through a 2025 case study from a major payer that began monitoring employment shifts as a risk signal. The hosts explain how a senior data scientist at Cigna described the practice at a conference, how it af...

In this episode of Services Economy with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore the latest frontier in health insurer data mining: meal kit delivery services. They dive into how companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield are purchasing data from providers like HelloFresh and Blue Apron to assess dietary habits and predict health risks. Lucas explains the mechanics of data aggregation, the specific predictive...

Episode 92 of Services Economy with Fexingo uncovers how health insurers are analyzing hospital meal ordering data to predict readmission risk and adjust post-discharge care plans. Lucas and Luna walk through a real case from a large academic medical center where patients who ordered high-sodium meals had a 34% higher 30-day readmission rate for heart failure. They explore how insurers are partner...

Episode 91 of Services Economy with Fexingo dives into a startling new frontier in health insurance data collection: dating apps. Lucas and Luna reveal how insurers are partnering with data brokers to analyze users' dating app activity, including location history, conversation sentiment, and profile details, to build health risk profiles. The episode focuses on a 2025 study showing that dating app...

Episode 90 of Services Economy with Fexingo. Lucas and Luna dive into a quietly explosive new data point health insurers are using: prescription refill timing. How quickly or slowly you refill a statin or an antidepressant is now being fed into risk models that can adjust your premiums or flag you for outreach. Lucas walks through a 2025 study from the Journal of Health Economics showing a 17 perc...

Episode 89 of Services Economy with Fexingo investigates a controversial frontier in insurance data: direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Over 30 million Americans have submitted saliva samples to companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com. Now health insurers are quietly lobbying to use that data for risk assessment and premium setting. Lucas and Luna break down the specific case of a 2024 actuarial...

Episode 88 of Services Economy digs into a new frontier of health insurance data mining: grocery delivery orders. Lucas and Luna examine how insurers like UnitedHealthcare and Oscar Health are partnering with Instacart and Amazon Fresh to analyze purchasing patterns for risk assessment and premium adjustments. They break down a 2025 study from the Journal of Health Economics that found a 22% corre...

Episode 87 of Services Economy with Fexingo: Lucas and Luna reveal how health insurers are buying granular grocery receipt data from third-party brokers like Nielsen and IRI. They walk through the specific data points collected — from brand choices to purchase timing to basket size — and explain how insurers build predictive models linking, say, a sudden shift to frozen vegetables to elevated diab...

Episode 86 of Services Economy with Fexingo, recorded July 2, 2026. Lucas and Luna explore how health insurers are now tapping into your car's telematics data to assess your driving habits and adjust premiums or wellness incentives. The hosts focus on a specific case: a large insurer that partners with automakers to access speed, braking, and mileage data through connected-car platforms. They disc...

Episode 85 of Services Economy dives into a surprising new data source for health insurers: your professional social media profile. Lucas and Luna explore how LinkedIn activity — job history, network size, skill endorsements — is being fed into actuarial models to predict health risk. They examine a case study involving a major insurer using an AI tool to analyze LinkedIn data of small-group polic...

Health insurers are now analyzing voice recordings to predict chronic conditions before symptoms appear. Lucas and Luna explore how vocal biomarkers — pitch, cadence, breath patterns — are being used by companies like Canary Health and Sonde Health to flag early signs of heart disease, depression, and COPD. They examine a 2025 study from Mayo Clinic linking voice changes to coronary artery disease...

Episode 83 dives into a new frontier in health insurance data collection: smart TVs. Lucas and Luna explore how insurers are partnering with data brokers to pull viewing habits from connected televisions — from how many hours of reality TV you watch to whether you see a lot of news or sports. They break down the specific metrics insurers find valuable, like screen time as a proxy for sedentary beh...

Episode 82 of Services Economy with Fexingo dives into the next frontier of health insurance risk assessment: grocery store purchase data. Lucas and Luna explore how insurers partner with data brokers like Nielsen and loyalty card programs to analyze everything from soda purchases to produce choices, building health risk profiles without a single medical test. The conversation centers on a 2025 st...

Episode 81 explores a surprising new data source for health insurers: pet insurance claims. Lucas and Luna examine how companies like Trupanion and Nationwide are selling anonymized pet health data to human insurers, who use it to flag potential risks in policyholders. We break down the story of one insurer that discovered a correlation between a dog's Cushing's disease diagnosis and its owner's s...

Episode 80 of Services Economy digs into the newest frontier of health insurer data-mining: your debit and credit card purchase history. Lucas and Luna trace how companies like Visa and Mastercard now sell anonymized transaction-level data to insurers and third-party health analytics firms. They break down a specific 2025 deal between a top-ten U.S. health plan and a consumer-data aggregator, expl...