Brooks Tingle believes the life insurance industry has a unique opportunity to help customers live longer, healthier, better lives. The President and CEO of John Hancock knows that when customers live longer, it is not just good for those individuals and their families, it’s also good for his business, and for society overall.
That belief extends throughout John Hancock’s business strategy, and defines one of its most innovative solutions, John Hancock Vitality, which has shifted the company from a “passive claims payer to an active risk manager,” Tingle said. Launched in 2015, the program gamifies the life insurance ownership experience: customers earn points for taking steps that correlate with better long-term health. From eating well and routine exercise to having preventative and recommended screenings like a colonoscopy, each action earns a number of points, which add up to a status in the program and correlate to certain rewards including savings on premiums, travel discounts and more.
Over the past decade, the program has integrated the latest advances in science and technology and made those resources available to customers so they can make informed decisions about their health. One of John Hancock Vitality’s recent additions came after Tingle heard a news report in December 2021 about a blood test that could potentially detect early-stage cancer. Today, that screening, Galleri® from GRAIL, is offered to John Hancock’s Vitality customers for free (or at a subsidy depending on the policy), a move Tingle knows is not only good for the business’ bottom line — but is right for customers so they can “know earlier, when it’s much more treatable,” he says. Since launching, many policyholders that their life insurance “saved their life.”
Tingle’s 30-plus-year career with John Hancock is shifting not only the trajectory of the company, but of people’s lives too. He earned his MBA from Boston University, and serves on the boards of John Hancock’s insurance companies, as well as the American Council of Life Insurers, the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, and the Tufts Nutrition Council for the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
We’re excited to hear more from Tingle at DOC 2025 and welcome him to our growing group of Faculty and Specialists.