July 25, 2022

Rethinking insurance: how prevention is better than a claim

After completing her first 5km run, Annette Ball was in floods of tears at the achievement.

It was the first milestone on a journey, starting in 2019, that has seen the 56-year-old music teacher from Coventry lose more than three stone in weight and establish a new regime of strenuous exercise nearly every day of the week.

Ball’s story is the kind of inspiring tale of self-improvement that flourishes on social media feeds, but what is more unusual is the company that she credits for getting her moving: her insurer.

A points-based scheme offered by life and health insurer Vitality, which uses a wearable device to track physical activity and offers financial benefits and vouchers for progress, was instrumental to her lifestyle shift.

“The bottom line is that it is insurance, but what it has enabled me to do is get healthier,” Ball says. “It’s certainly changed how I live now.”

It is just one example of a shift that is reshaping the centuries-old insurance sector, fuelled by new technologies and real-time data that insurers are increasingly gathering on their customers.

Vitality calls it “shared-value insurance”, others call it “active insurance”, but the core idea is the same — focusing

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Banks shun U.S. law firm trying to represent Russian lender VTB

The logo of VTB bank is seen at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia, June 3, 2021. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina

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  • New York’s Brafman & Associates says it was already rejected by three banks and is asking others to facilitate client payments
  • The bank is fighting claims it helped send money to Russian separatists that allegedly shot down a plane in 2014

(Reuters) – Lawyers who have agreed to represent Russia’s sanctioned VTB Bank in U.S. litigation say a third bank has refused to work with them to handle legal fee payments, forcing them to request more time to enter the case.

Manhattan law firm Brafman & Associates has been trying since early June to formally sign on as defense counsel for VTB in a lawsuit claiming the bank facilitated payments connected with the 2014 downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine.

International law firm Latham & Watkins said in April that it intended to withdraw from representing the sanctioned bank. The Brafman firm has said it cannot enter the case until it is paid.

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