Read More
BOC Life is leveraging behavioural data to transform how people think about insurance
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Through a partnership with Hong Kong start-up On-us, BOC Group Life Assurance Company Limited (BOC Life) has built a digital wellness ecosystem that rewards healthier lifestyles while deepening long-term engagement with customers.
“Insurance used to be something people only thought about when they bought a policy or filed a claim,” said Toni Tse, Head of Digital Innovation and Growth at BOC Life. “We wanted to change that by becoming part of our customers’ daily lives.”
Toni Tse, Head of Digital Innovation and Growth at BOC Life
In 2021, BOC Life launched the Live Young Rewards Programme as a digital platform to connect members’ health indicators through an exclusive “Biological Age Model BAM” algorithm with five metrics covering sleeping hours, BMI, resting heart Rate, active calories and steps, all of which are automatically transformed into rewards and incentives.
The Live Young App blends gamification with charity and social elements and consolidate them into one platform. By doing so, users are encouraged to engage in a healthy and bio age-reducing lifestyle together with their families and friends.
Even non-policyholders can join as basic members for a 90-day trial. Participants earn points by syncing wearable or mobile health data and redeeming rewards across a wide range of lifestyle and community partners.
“Our vision was to build a complete health ecosystem,” Tse explained. “Members can use their points for health checks, gym sessions, nutrition consultations or even groceries so that they have tangible motivation for better habits.”
Behind the platform is On-us’ patented Smart E-Voucher solution, which expands the reward choices in the app, streamlining the issuance and redemption of digital rewards.
The platform offers more than 3,000 merchant brands across globe – from cafés and supermarkets to fitness and healthcare brands – are made accessible for businesses to curate reward choices with greater flexibility.
For BOC Life, it enables a richer mix of health and wellness rewards in the app while giving users the convenience of redeeming vouchers instantly on their phones. The users can even use their reward points for charity causes.
“When users get to unlock a coffee or a body check-up seamlessly in the app, engagement skyrockets,” said Tse. “The technology made it possible for us to manage a huge merchant base without friction, and customers love the immediacy and choices.
Unlike traditional loyalty schemes, BOC Life’s platform integrates health science metrics through what Tse calls the Biological Age Model.
This proprietary model combines five indicators – daily steps, exercise intensity, resting heart rate, body mass index and sleep hours – to estimate a user’s “biological age” relative to their actual age.
The company’s digital arm, SCOR Digital Solutions, developed the model with researchers using anonymised wearable data to enhance accuracy, offers clear evidence that user engagement translates into measurable lifestyle improvement.
According to BOC Life, these insights also facilitate product design and customer segmentation.
“When we understand what motivates each user, whether it be nutrition, exercise or convenience, we can adjust our offers accordingly to further boost up the attractiveness of our programme,” said Tse.
And for On-us, the collaboration exemplifies how fintech can merge marketing, data and customer psychology.
“We see incentives as a new form of data signal,” said Dennis Shi, founder and CEO of On-us, at Hong Kong FinTech Week 2025. “Every redemption tells you something about a customer’s intent and lifestyle. When analysed properly, it becomes predictive intelligence for engagement.”
Dennis Shi, founder and CEO of On-us
The company’s AI-driven “Incentive Intelligence” engine learns from redemption patterns to recommend the most effective reward types, timing and channels. This reduces wastage of unredeemed vouchers with precision targeting and helps business partners allocate budgets more efficiently.
Looking ahead, On-us aims to deepen its collaboration with BOC Life by extending this part of data service in the future, enabling the insurer to gain more customer engagement insights from redemption behaviour that have yet to be fully utilised.
Honnus Cheung, co-founder and chief strategy officer of On-us, added that “our job is to build an ecosystem that truly serves both corporates and consumers” .
“From onboarding new merchants to analysing redemption behaviour, we make sure every touchpoint delivers value. When customers feel rewarded instantly and meaningfully, their loyalty naturally strengthens.”
Cheung elaborated that merchants also benefit from the platform’s data transparency, and most importantly uplift their in-store traffic and incremental sales through network effect.
“Retailers and wellness brands can see measurable uplift in sales after joining,” she said. “Many start with a single campaign and quickly scale up because they can target the exact customer segments they want.”
The success of the BOC Life programme has sparked interest even outside of Hong Kong. Shi said On-us is now in talks with regional banks, insurers and venture-capital funds about partnerships and investment.
“Several insurers and financial institutions have approached us to see how this model could extend into their products in other markets,” he said. “The right strategic investors can help us expand our merchant network and distribution footprint, especially across Asia.”
Cheung added that Hong Kong provides a powerful proof of concept. “When partners visit and see how smoothly the system runs – with real user last mile data, compliant processes and satisfied merchants and users – they immediately understand its export potential,” she said.
Apart from customer retention, the partnership has become a powerful acquisition channel. Since launch, thousands of users who joined as non-policy members have become policyholders. Tse said this validates the idea that continuous engagement drives conversion.
“When customers interact with us regularly through health challenges or rewards redemption, they build trust. So when they decide to buy coverage, they naturally think of BOC Life first,” said Tse.
At Hong Kong FinTech Week 2025, HKSTP facilitated around 150 business matchings and showcased 20 of the companies it supports.
