PruHealth is facing customer criticism following the move, which comes into effect later this year.
PruHealth's flagship "free gym membership" insurance policy has changed its terms and conditions, the Guardian reports.
The provider launched the cover as a way, it claimed, of encouraging people to live a more healthy lifestyle. It worked by customers being given discounts for visiting the gym, which eventually built up to free membership if these were used often enough.
However, PruHealth has now announced that, from November, it will be basing its gym membership discounts on the "Vitality status" built up by the customer. This status is boosted not through the frequency of gym use, but by other "healthy" activities including reading articles on the insurer's website, buying certain foods at Sainsbury's or undergoing medical checks.
Speaking to the newspaper, one customer commented: "If I carry on with my twice-weekly gym attendance, my membership fee will rise from nothing a month to £50 a month…Customers could also be paying for health screens and other products promoted by [PruHealth's] call centre to achieve discounted gym membership in the future, yet PruHealth may change its awards at any point."
A spokesperson for PruHealth said: "Anyone who feels that they will be worse off can cancel without any penalty if they want to. Our gym partners were the only ones [connected with the Vitality scheme] that were frequency based. We have decided to align all our partners to become points-based."
