Digital health, remote monitoring and connected devices offer opportunities to support prevention and earlier intervention. Their value, however, depends on whether the information they generate leads to appropriate clinical action, improves patient experience and delivers sustainable benefits across the healthcare system.

For insurers, this creates responsibilities that extend beyond financing treatment. Their relationships with customers before illness can support preventive health behaviours, while partnerships with healthcare providers and technology companies can help connect services, guide patients through coverage options and evaluate which innovations merit wider adoption.

In this interview with, Irma Hadikusuma, Chief Marketing and Healthcare Officer, AIA Singapore, discusses the evidence needed to integrate digital health into insurance plans, the importance of patient trust and the partnerships required to build more coordinated care.

As healthcare shifts towards prevention and earlier intervention, what role can insurers play in accelerating the adoption of digital health, connected care and remote monitoring across Singapore and APAC?

Insurers sit at a unique intersection connecting individuals, healthcare providers, and the broader healthcare ecosystem. Relative to doctors or hospitals, our relationship with our customers begins long before they fall sick or receive a diagnosis. This puts us in a unique position with valuable opportunities to intervene early and influence positive health behaviours upstream.

To accelerate digital health adoption, insurers can make digital health more accessible by seamlessly integrating telehealth, remote monitoring, connected devices, and digital coaching directly into the customer’s overall health journey. We can also create the right incentives through targeted insurance products and health programmes. Take, for instance, our award-winning programme, AIA Vitality, which encourages individuals to take early action, actively manage health risks, and adopt healthier lifestyles.

Prevention is better than cure. Remote monitoring tools not only lower the physical barriers to seeking professional help, but also allow for early identification of potential health issues so individuals and their healthcare providers can intervene before conditions escalate.

Ultimately, driving digital health adoption is not about pursuing technology for the sake of it. It is about spending our collective resources most effectively to maximise health outcomes and expand healthspan for every dollar spent across insurers, providers, and policymakers. This directly aligns with AIA’s focus on purposeful longevity—ensuring people do not just live longer, but live healthier, more fulfilling lives.

Wearables, biomarker platforms and other connected technologies are generating more continuous health data. How can insurers work with healthcare providers to translate this information into meaningful clinical action while maintaining patient trust and data privacy?

Generating more data does not necessarily lead to better healthcare. The crucial opportunity lies in converting wearable and biomarker data into insights that are clinically meaningful, actionable, and genuinely useful to the individual. To translate this information into clinical action, insurers must work closely with healthcare providers and technology partners to identify which specific data points matter clinically and ensure they are interpreted within the proper medical context. By establishing clear clinical pathways, we ensure that the right data triggers the right intervention at the right time, empowering a shift in our approach from passive data collection to proactive, personalised health management.

Maintaining patient trust and data privacy is fundamental to this effort. Individuals must clearly understand what data is being collected, why it is needed, who can access it, and how it directly benefits them. We need robust data governance, clear consent models, and strong security safeguards in place. At the same time, we must be thoughtful about what data we collect to ensure that it is relevant and necessary, rather than capturing everything simply because the technology permits it.

In health insurance, there is often a misconception among consumers about coverage, medical necessity, and how decisions are made. We have a responsibility to educate consumers and provide transparency before medical events happen, rather than after diagnosis or bill submission. People will embrace connected health technologies when they feel the tools are working for them, combining digital convenience with clinical rigor, transparency, and strong data protection.

What role can insurers play in improving access to digital therapeutics, remote care and other technology-enabled services, particularly for patients who may otherwise face cost or access barriers?

Our role is to make digital therapeutics, remote care, and technology-enabled services accessible, affordable, and embedded into daily healthcare journeys. Leveraging our scale and reach, we can extend innovative solutions that initially serve niche groups to the broader population.

By incorporating digital therapeutics, telehealth, and remote care directly into insurance plans and health programmes, access no longer depends solely on an individual’s ability or willingness to pay out-of-pocket for each separate service. This lowers financial barriers and makes digital care a routine part of healthcare.

Insurers can also bridge standalone digital tools with traditional health systems by collaborating with providers to build integrated care pathways. In these pathways, remote technologies oversee monitoring, prevention, and follow-up, while clinical expertise remains centred on patient care.

In addition, insurers have a responsibility to help customers navigate a complex healthcare environment. Through initiatives like pre-authorisation and financial guidance, we help patients understand their options, what is covered, and alternative care pathways before treatment begins.

Finally, insurers can accelerate meaningful innovation by evaluating tools based on real health impact and patient experience rather than novelty alone. This evidence-based approach ensures that scalable solutions deliver true value and affordability, supporting a sustainable system that spends money efficiently to deliver better healthspan and quality care for all.

When evaluating a new digital health, AI or remote monitoring solution, what clinical, operational and economic evidence do insurers need before considering wider coverage or integration into health plans?

When evaluating any new digital health, AI, or remote monitoring tool, our starting point is never the technology itself, but whether it meaningfully improves patient health outcomes and overall patient experience.

Before considering wider coverage or plan integration, we have a responsibility to collect clear evidence that the solution is clinically safe, effective, and delivers tangible value. Beyond controlled clinical trials, we also look closely at real-world utilisation, including active user engagement, whether it leads to earlier clinical intervention, improves treatment adherence, delivers measurable health outcomes, and sustains those benefits over time.

Economic evidence and system sustainability are equally vital considerations. Rising claims, medical cost inflation, and over-servicing impact overall premium affordability. Because insurance claims directly affect future premiums across the whole risk pool, we must ensure solutions control long-term claims inflation and deliver cost-efficient health gains. Furthermore, for AI and data-driven platforms, trust is paramount, requiring complete confidence in data privacy, cybersecurity standards, algorithmic transparency, and appropriate human clinical oversight.

While clinicians determine medical necessity for individual patients, insurers must evaluate coverage against overall policy scope, cost limits, and long-term sustainability for all policyholders. Beyond considering whether a technology works, we must first know whether it works effectively and sustainably for our patients.

How do you see insurers working with hospitals, medtech companies, digital health providers and employers to build more connected care pathways that support prevention, continuity of care and better long-term outcomes?

Insurers are a central connector across the healthcare landscape. Today, a patient journey is often fragmented, with patients navigating independently between primary care clinics, specialists, private hospitals, digital health apps, and home or workplace care settings. To solve this fragmentation, we need deeper multi-stakeholder partnerships built around shared accountability.

By bringing these different pieces together around the individual, digital health and medtech providers can help detect risks earlier, healthcare providers can deliver timely and coordinated clinical interventions, and insurers can build the coverage pathways and financial incentives that keep individuals engaged in their health.

As employees spend over 40 hours per week on average at work, employers also play a vital role in workplace health, preventive wellness, and driving healthy habits among working-age populations.

Furthermore, insurers and hospital groups must engage in active, transparent dialogues around care outcomes, value-based care models, bundled packages, and cost containment.

Because health insurance maintains a long-term relationship with individuals long before illness occurs, insurers are uniquely positioned to align providers, technology companies, and employers around a shared goal: spending our collective healthcare dollars in the most effective manner to achieve better healthspan, seamless continuity of care, and sustainable long-term outcomes.