Nashville, Tennessee. Credit: SeanPavonePhoto/Adobe Stock
Tennessee insurance regulators are clashing with LifeX Research Corp. over the company's approach to providing health benefits.
LifeX sees itself as a company that hires remote workers to participate in health and wellness research studies and offers them access to health benefits.
Officials in Tennessee contend that LifeX is a company that's trying to sell health benefits in Tennessee and is not authorized to do that.
No licensed health insurers offering major medical coverage in Tennessee provide coverage to Tennessee consumers through LifeX, according to an alert the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance issued earlier this week.
Carter Lawrence, the Tennessee insurance commissioner, said in a comment included in the alert that getting a health plan from a company that's not licensed to sell insurance in Tennessee could have disastrous consequences for consumers. "Providers may not recognize your unlicensed plan, leaving you responsible for the full cost of care," Lawrence said.
LifeX could not immediately be reached for comment.
LifeX: LifeX says it pays the participants in its research projects $40 per hour and classifies them as employees.
The company offers employee research study participants access to health benefits through third-party administrators, according to a set of LifeX answers to frequently asked questions.
The backdrop: Tennessee is not the first state where regulators and health insurers have disagreed with LifeX about whether the company's research participants can be classified as employees and provided health coverage through TPAs.
Regulators in California, for example, moved to keep LifeX from offering access to health benefits there.
Elevance Health, the parent of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, sued LifeX in June 2025 in an effort to keep the company from issuing health insurance ID cards bearing the Anthem logo.
Elevance, Anthem Insurance Companies and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association negotiated a settlement with LifeX that will keep LifeX from using the Anthem, Blue Cross or Blue Shield names or logos in connection with LifeX health insurance ID cards, according to a consent judgment the court in Georgia last week.
What it means: LifeX efforts could have a bearing in the future on how health insurers and regulators define terms such as "employer" and "employer health plan?
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