Your fitness tracker measures more than steps and sleep cycles. Hidden in that heart rate data lies something far more valuable to life insurance companies: a prediction of when you’ll die. Danish researchers built an AI system called life2vec that analyzed 6 million people’s complete life histories and predicted four-year mortality with 78% accuracy—outperforming traditional insurance models by 11%. The unsettling part? Insurers are racing to deploy similar tools using your everyday digital exhaust.
The Algorithm Behind the Curtain
Life insurance companies are quietly replacing human underwriters with AI death calculators.
The life2vec model reads like science fiction made real. It transforms everything from medical visits to job changes into sequence data, then predicts survival with transformer architecture—the same technology powering ChatGPT. Society of Actuaries research shows insurers are developing AI models that ingest “non-traditional data” beyond typical medical exams, including detailed treatment records and lifestyle indicators. Your Apple Watch’s irregular heartbeat alerts are prime input for mortality scoring algorithms.
From Data Streams to Denial Letters
Wearable devices and health apps are feeding insurance companies ammunition for claim disputes.
Life insurance attorneys warn that carriers might soon weaponize AI predictions during contestability periods. Let’s say that you apply for coverage while seemingly healthy, then die two years later from an undiagnosed condition. The insurer’s AI, having analyzed your smartwatch data, claims their algorithm detected early warning signs you “should have disclosed.” Legal experts predict disputes where companies use third-party mortality scores to justify application denials or policy cancellations—decisions based on patterns invisible to applicants themselves.
The Bias Buried in Code
AI mortality models risk encoding social inequalities as mathematical certainties.
Sune Lehman, who led the life2vec research, explicitly warns against insurance applications, arguing they would “threaten the basic principle of shared risk.” The concern runs deeper than privacy. These models might learn that certain zip codes, job types, or income levels correlate with earlier death—then embed those biases into coverage decisions. Unlike traditional actuarial tables, AI systems operate as black boxes, making their reasoning nearly impossible to challenge or audit.
Your Digital Death Score
Every health app and fitness tracker potentially feeds an invisible mortality rating system.
While consumer “death calculator” apps offer morbid entertainment, the insurance industry’s versions carry life-altering consequences. Your Fitbit sleep scores and telehealth consultations could factor into an algorithmic assessment of your lifespan. The most disturbing aspect? You’ll never know your mortality score or how it was calculated—until coverage gets denied or claims get contested based on risks only an AI could detect.
