MassMutual’s LifeScore Labs wants to offer visibility into the process

MassMutual’s LifeScore Labs, a division working on portability and scoring of life insurance risk, has launched a consumer-facing tool on its site that aims to provide some visibility into how algorithms interpret data.

Based on LifeScore 360, the division’s flagship product launched in February 2018, MyLifeScore360 provides insight intp how an insurance carrier measures life insurance risk by asking 10 questions on such characteristics as age, height, weight and smoking-status, among others. Based on their answers, consumers are provided with a score between one and 100 (with 100 being the best), as well as a report on the factors that contributed to the score, which will enable them to better understand and interpret how their risk profile impacts their life insurance risk.

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The user’s data, score and report are anonymous and are not shared with other life insurance companies or third parties. However, users can open a dialogue with MassMutual or its Haven Life unit right after completing the tool if they want. The idea, says MassMutual’s head of data science and analytics Sears Merritt, is to make the process of acquiring life insurance less opaque as more data is integrated with the process, and remove the barriers to customer acquisition.

“It’s a simplified, consumer-oriented version of the LifeScore 360 product,” Merritt, who is also head of LifeScore Labs, explains. “We believe in ensuring that consumers have the ability to understand how algorithms function, and how the data they provide influence their scores.”

The idea of making scores portable and transparent has some analogues. In auto insurance, Allstate’s Arity and Answer Financial divisions have integrated the former’s auto-insurance scoring with several app partners in order to expose more users to the potential of savings based on driving habits. Similarly, Merritt says that MassMutual is exploring partnerships with like-minded organizations in order to get more people to try out the tool.

“Today, we’ve decided to engage with consumers directly, but we’re certainly always open to potential partners with consistent points of view around standardization and portability of life insurance scores, and that have the capability to integrate the score into other experiences,” he says.

LifeScore Labs launched in February 2018 with LifeScore360, which was developed over a period of two years in the MassMutual data-science program. The idea was to commercialize the intellectual property that has been developed in the program and “introduce a standards-based way to identify life insurance risk, so that we, on an industry scale, can optimize the customer experience,” Merritt said at the time. The insurer partnered with iPipeline to help integrate the scoring into business processes at insurance companies.

Next up for the unit, Merritt says, are capabilities for disability insurance and a fluidless model for underwriting.