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Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

theguardian.com

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Re: Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

#31

Post by MichaelBurge »

herghost wrote: post #7

It's interesting because they clearly believe they have workable actuarial data to support this, so in many ways good on them for using the data that's available. On the other hand, based on the examples given, it seems this is going to penalise people using language incorrectly - which I would assume can be strongly correlated with poor education. So on that basis, they're going to be saying that poor people are wor…

Poor people might be less likely to pay for maintenance or preventative measures, so their claims are larger than average. They might also live in areas with more vandalism.

In that sense, it seems as okay as charging poor people a higher interest rate, which seems fine to me.

Re: Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

#32

Post by Broken_Hippo »

teekert wrote: post #24

"You will only get discounts" Yeah right, that is not how insurance works. The cost per year for an insurance company is relatively stable and simply the chance a person crashes * the average cost of a crash * the amount of people insured. The other customers, without FB or who use a lot of exclamation marks will thus pay for a higher amount of the total costs. This gives them an incentive to go to a fair insurance c…

I always find the "you will only get discounts" version of anything. "participate in x wellness program and get x tests and pay less for health insurance!"

I always read this as them trying positive language: The real meaning is, "do this or be penalized by paying more". The more tight on funds one is, the more folks need the discount.

Re: Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

#34

Post by noir_lord »

fredley wrote: post #11
noir_lord wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That IP bill is a horror show and it's passing with a wink and a nod, I'm fast losing what little faith I had in Government to do the right thing. We seem to have the worst government we've had in my life time (or perhaps I'm just politically more aware of whats going on).

With full support from both the Tories and Labour, there's nowhere serious to turn.

Yep, We really need to get rid of FPTP but that requires the turkeys voting for Christmas and the last campaign was foul.

https://dailyelection.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/no-to-av-s...

https://dailyelection.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/no-to-av-m...

How the fuck do we let them get away with shit like that.

Re: Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

#35

Post by maxerickson »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #30
jpalomaki wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume things like income and education are already now used in this kind of pricing decisions.

To a point, yes. I don't think they are allowed to know the income in the US - and I'm not sure they can ask your education either. But they do use credit score, which negatively affects poor people. They say it is because people with poor credit are more likely to file a claim (note it isn't because of poor driving, just simply ability to cover a smaller incident). They also use crime rates in an area, how far you d…

You can volunteer that you are a college graduate to get a discount.

Re: Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

#36

Post by ominous »

newscracker wrote: post #22

Won't this cause people to game the system to get discounts? I'm sure once people learn more about the internals (some of which have been revealed in the article), they could change their online behavior (not necessarily offline) to make it more suited to what gets a better value for them. Or they could even have multiple accounts - one to show a good face to such companies and another that's a personal account (even…

You mean what happens when people dress up and carefully pick photos for work interviews and dates? Or any other infinite social situations?

> The reason we’re such consummate bullshitters is simple: we bullshit for each other. We tweak our stories so that they become better stories. We bend the facts so that the facts appeal to the group. Because we are social animals, our memory of the past is constantly being revised to fit social pressures. [0]

Everything is already fake. Might as well admit it.

[0] - http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2011/10/28/the-falli...

Re: Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

#37

Post by maxerickson »

newscracker wrote: post #22

Won't this cause people to game the system to get discounts? I'm sure once people learn more about the internals (some of which have been revealed in the article), they could change their online behavior (not necessarily offline) to make it more suited to what gets a better value for them. Or they could even have multiple accounts - one to show a good face to such companies and another that's a personal account (even…

The insurance company will be far better at pricing the predictive value of the information than the typical customer will be at manipulating the information.

Especially over a longer time periods.

Re: Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

#38

Post by MichaelBurge »

newscracker wrote: post #22

Won't this cause people to game the system to get discounts? I'm sure once people learn more about the internals (some of which have been revealed in the article), they could change their online behavior (not necessarily offline) to make it more suited to what gets a better value for them. Or they could even have multiple accounts - one to show a good face to such companies and another that's a personal account (even…

Do you personally plan to spend time trying to reverse-engineer Admiral's insurance model? If not, multiply that by everyone else and you have your answer.

It's less work to just switch insurance companies.

Re: Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

#39

Post by citizenkeen »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #30
jpalomaki wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume things like income and education are already now used in this kind of pricing decisions.

To a point, yes. I don't think they are allowed to know the income in the US - and I'm not sure they can ask your education either. But they do use credit score, which negatively affects poor people. They say it is because people with poor credit are more likely to file a claim (note it isn't because of poor driving, just simply ability to cover a smaller incident). They also use crime rates in an area, how far you d…

Yeah, education totally keeps your rates low in the US. They can't demand to know your education, but since you get a lower rate the better educated you are, you'd certainly volunteer that info.

Re: Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

#40

Post by geomark »

newscracker wrote: post #22

Won't this cause people to game the system to get discounts? I'm sure once people learn more about the internals (some of which have been revealed in the article), they could change their online behavior (not necessarily offline) to make it more suited to what gets a better value for them. Or they could even have multiple accounts - one to show a good face to such companies and another that's a personal account (even…

This looks like yet another business opportunity where online personas are crafted for a fee.
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