More than 10,000 Finns let insurer track their heart rate in bid for better coverage

More than 10,000 Finnish customers have granted Nordea access to their heart-rate data through fitness devices in exchange for the chance to boost their life-insurance payouts.

Nordea’s MyLife service links a policyholder’s wearable or smartphone app to the insurer’s platform, allowing the company to receive daily “activity points” calculated by a third-party Finnish software firm. The points are based on exercise intensity and duration, with higher heart rates earning two points per minute.

Every 100-day average above 20 points raises the death or permanent-disability benefit by 15 percent; 45 points yields a 25 percent increase. A brisk 20-minute walk is enough to reach the entry-level “occasional exerciser” tier, according to Pekka Luukkanen, CEO of Nordea Henkivakuutus Suomi Oy.

The insurer receives only the aggregated score, not raw health data, Luukkanen said. The underlying information remains with Wellmo, a Finnish developer that supplies the scoring engine.

Finland’s Financial Supervisory Authority has not raised objections, but scholars question how deeply insurers should peer into private lives. Olli Norros, professor of insurance law at the University of Helsinki, called usage-based pricing “an important part of insurance economics,” while Anna-Mari Wallenberg, a university docent in cognitive science, asked where the line should be drawn on monitoring.

Nordea launched the service commercially in 2025 after a 2016 pilot by OP that was discontinued for lack of market readiness. Industry-wide sales of smartwatches and fitness trackers have since climbed roughly 15 percent annually, making personal health data more accessible.