Are weight-loss drugs the medical innovation the insurance industry has been waiting for? Could they reshape claims experience across mortality, longevity and medical insurance products? Research by Swiss Re certainly suggests so. The reinsurer predicts that weight-loss drugs could reduce cumulative all-cause mortality by up to 5.1 per cent in the UK by 2045, as well as lowering morbidity in a range of conditions associated with being overweight or obese.
However, all this potential won’t come from the drugs alone. Swiss Re cautions that success rests on uptake being high and patients engaging in lifestyle changes, alongside the treatment.
Having introduced discounted weight-loss medications – including Wegovy – into our health insurance offering earlier this year, we can now explore early outcomes, plus what our latest research tells us about potential demand. This includes looking at the role that weight-loss drugs might play in employee benefits, specifically healthcare and risk.
Obesity is linked to numerous leading causes of death, including cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, cancers, neurological disorders, chronic respiratory diseases and digestive disorders. Weight-loss medications offer a way to tackle this, with The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommending weight-loss drug Wegovy for NHS use in March 2023, and Mounjaro in December 2024.
Both are now being rolled out in England, but on a limited basis, due to concerns that GPs and medical services will not be able to meet the demand for these drugs.
Evidence suggests the effectiveness of these drugs is striking. New data from Vitality’s medicated weight management pathway, launched earlier this year, shows that members enrolled lost on average 9.3 per cent of their body weight within just a three-month period. This compares to an average 6 per cent over a three-month period for those on our non-medicated weight-management pathway.
That’s not to say that weight management medications represent a universal solution. But when accompanied by wider lifestyle changes and weight-loss management support, the outcomes are significantly better.
Vitality recently commissioned nationally representative research among UK adults with private health insurance. This included members of all the main health insurance providers.
Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of respondents said they currently use, or have used, weight management medication. And 26 per cent said, they are considering using it in future. Nearly one in five (19 per cent) of taking or considering medication said this was recommended by a GP or a healthcare professional.
So how might weight loss medications impact the group healthcare and risk markets? And, in turn, employee benefit programmes?
First and foremost, it’s safe to say that weight loss can transform lives, both through the significant potential reduction in physical health complications, but also in facilitating an shift towards a healthier lifestyle. Healthier people mean fewer claims, especially the bigger, more costly claims.
To help illustrate the impact of obesity, Vitality’s claims data from 2021 to 2024 shows that members living with obesity were 35 per cent more likely to be hospitalised for any condition (when compared to those with a healthy BMI) and 123 per cent more likely to be hospitalised for a cardiac condition.
In terms of employers, there seems to a shift, driven by the government’s Get Britain Working review, toward a change of mindset, where health is viewed as a partnership between employees, employers and providers of health services. This is a shift that focuses heavily on prevention.
Employee benefits can help with this, improving accessibility to vital services – such as weight management – helping level the playing field, potentially helping to improve business outcomes in the process.
Our role, as an industry, is to communicate the benefits of such widespread provision in value terms. Yes, this includes lower claims costs. But arguably just as important is value in terms of business outcomes. For example, the potential for reduced absence and presenteeism and improved productivity. This all sits alongside the benefits and impact that the individual experiences too.
This is the path we must take toward strengthening the insurer safety net and contributing to helping people live longer, healthier lives.
