Income security when health impairment or other social risks occur is a major objective of welfare states. This comparative study uses register data from four Nordic welfare states for examining equivalized disposable income during the last 12 years alive among men and women who died when aged 55–69 years old. The analysed outcome indicates the aggregate result of a varied set of income maintenance mechanisms. Median income increased in the Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish samples, but decreased somewhat in Denmark, probably due to relatively frequent transitions to retirement and larger income drops after retirement than in the other Nordic countries. Analyses of comparison samples weighted by propensity scores indicated a better income development among those who lived beyond the observation period than among those who died. The higher educated had a more favourable income development during the years prior to death than those with low education.

Digital technology is starting to enable new and improved modes of healthcare delivery. The healthcare and disability claims spaces are closely intertwined. Disability claimants certainly have healthcare needs but disability claims management has the added dimension of supporting return to work.

In this paper, we explain what is meant by the term “Digital Health.” We then compare the challenges in the healthcare and disability claims management spaces where digital technology may improve outcomes. We touch briefly on how the efficacy of digital technology may be evaluated. The later parts of the paper focus on Digital Health technology providers who have engaged with the insurance industry and we conclude with some learnings around the challenges of implementing these technology-based opportunities.

This paper focuses on interventions once a policyholder’s health has failed to the extent that they need to claim. There are many opportunities to improve wellness and prevent claim using digital technology, as noted by the IFoA Wearables and Internet of Things Working Party,1 and we do not discuss these further this paper.

Cordeiro (2002a) has presented a multiple state model for Income Protection (formerly known as Permanent Health Insurance) which enables us to analyse claims by cause of disability. In that paper average claim durations conditioned on recovery have been calculated.

Since, when an Income Protection claim is reported, the insurance company never knows whether it will end in recovery, in death or in expiry, to analyse only average claim durations conditioned on recovery could be misleading, specially for the people responsible for the claims control process.

The main purpose of this paper is to calculate average claim durations conditioned on death and average claim durations not conditioned on any particular mode of claim termination. We calculate these claim durations for different deferred periods, causes of disability and ages at the beginning of sickness and we analyse the results obtained.