How Health Insurers Are Scoring Your Credit Card Rewards

Episode 97 of Services Economy digs into a quietly growing data practice: health insurers analyzing credit card reward category spending to build health risk scores. Lucas and Luna walk through how a major payer might see your airline miles, cash-back on fast food, or grocery rewards as behavioral health signals more granular than a credit score. They trace the logic from a 2025 working paper by health economists at the University of Michigan, which found that a shift from grocery rewards to restaurant rewards correlates with a 12% higher rate of emergency department visits within six months. The hosts discuss the regulatory gray zone — the Fair Credit Reporting Act only partially covers this data, and insurers argue they are using spending categories, not medical claims, to predict diabetes or depression risk. They also look at the pushback: a class-action lawsuit filed in California Superior Court in March 2026 alleging that the practice violates state privacy law without explicit consumer consent. The episode connects the dots between your cash-back preferences and your premium, raising a question about how much of your financial life is already being underwritten. #HealthInsurance #DataBrokerage #CreditCardRewards #RiskScoring #PrivacyLaw #ConsumerFinance #BehavioralData #Underwriting #InsuranceTech #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #Economics #ServicesEconomy #LucasLuna #MichiganStudy #CaliforniaLawsuit #FCRA #PremiumSetting Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo