Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images • Hacker News Board

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#331

Post by westurner » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 9:52 PM UTC

djha-skin wrote: post #199

I used to work for Verisk, an insurance tech holding company, who owned a company that took pictures of people's roofs using airplanes and special cameras. They got sued over a patent violation with EagleView[1], who claimed the tech idea as their own, and settled. > The strategic alliance allows customers seamless and integrated access to EagleView technology within Verisk’s Xactware platform Xactware is a product t…

Did either of the parties move to invalidate the patent claims as obvious as, say, a camera on a stick or a toy airplane with a camera?

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#332

Post by tptacek » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 9:52 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #325

RomanAlexander wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't said trampoline simply not be covered by the policy since you lied about it? The agents are checking a box and the underwriter is sticking in a boilerplate "Customer said no trampoline therefore trampolines are excluded from this policy" text

It’s worse than that actually; say the liar’s house burns down and the insurance adjuster finds the trampoline in the garden after the fact. As I understand it, the insurer can void the entire contract.

I mean, the insurer in that case discovered that the client was defrauding them. If you steal $100 from someone's cash register, buy scratchy lotteries with it, win $200, and put the $100 back in the register, you're still a thief. That's the logic here: you gambled on a pirate trampoline and feel like you should have won.

I don't know if it really is the case that your insurance can be voided over material misrepresentations unrelated to your claim, but certainly there's no moral argument that it shouldn't work that way.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#333

Post by imgabe » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 9:53 PM UTC

gmd63 wrote: post #72

kjkjadksj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they in the business of denying coverage? They are insurance. They estimate their payouts from the entire pool and price your premiums accordingly. Paying out should therefore not really affect their bottom line if they price the premiums appropriately.

Home insurance companies are leaving Florida because it's not profitable to operate in an area with so much vulnerability to hurricane damage. Also, the only thing stopping medical insurers from denying coverage or increasing prices for people with pre-existing conditions is the Affordable Care Act.

The whole point of insurance is that there is a relatively low probability of a relatively high expense event happening. In all likelihood, the thing won't happen to you, but if we all pool our money together and you are the unlucky person then you're covered.

A pre-existing condition is not a low probability event. It is a 100% certainty that you have to pay for it. In that case the insurance is just a middleman who is increasing the cost of the thing you definitely have to pay for. You pay the insurance company, they take a cut, and they pay the healthcare provider. Why not just pay the healthcare provider directly?

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#334

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 9:54 PM UTC

Nifty3929 wrote: post #306

medion wrote: post #289

This aerial stuff now enhanced by AI is a privacy rights nightmare - in Australia, local councils are utilizing high res images shot by plane, which are AI analysed for infractions - ie. Illegal outbuildings, cut trees, earth works greater than a metre in depth, solar panels placed without auth etc. This kind of tech is going to be abused by both the private and public sector to no end. The images have a resolution t…

This is not a technology or privacy problem - it's a legislative one. If it's illegal to do X, then it seems reasonable for the gov't to enforce that - the more efficiently the better. And if enforcing it seems wrong, then maybe it shouldn't be a law. For another toy example, what if speed laws in the US were fully enforced 100% of the time - they would be yanked immediately, because they are dumb and mostly just use…

[deleted]

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#335

Post by dontupvoteme » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 9:55 PM UTC

medion wrote: post #311

killingtime74 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Am Australian lawyer) there's no privacy recognised in any of those things you're talking about. Simple solution is don't lie to insurers or the government. Of course we can elect politicians that change the law. Might be a hard sell if the motivation is to stop detection of illegal things. Sources: (no general right to privacy) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Park_Racing_%26_Rec... The Privacy Act ( https:…

Haha, by your reckoning why not monitor all comms for any lies? This is why we can’t have nice things. We are walking into a new Robodebt scenario run by AI - it’s all too much living in a constant state of surveillance and it’s not a world I want to live in.

Don't give aussies any ideas, they tried to make mathematics illegal. Sometimes they take the worst aspects of the british and americans and make it their own

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#336

Post by superultra » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 9:56 PM UTC

My good friend works as an insurance agent. According to him, insurers are dropping customers based on anything right now. It’s caused chaos in the agency business, particularly in certain states.

My bet is aerial images are just one way of many that they’re dropping customers.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#337

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 9:58 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #167

Auburn, California, is a mistake and should be uninsurable, and I don't want either my tax dollars or my insurance premiums being used to subsidize the treehouse lifestyle of exurban home owners. Whether this specific person's roof is rotted or not isn't really the point. Right now, the real estate sprawl industry is running their printing press at 110% design speed, trying to convince everyone that people who live o…

[deleted]

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#338

Post by imgabe » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 9:59 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #294

I don't really understand the privacy concern here. To wit: insurers can demand actual inspection of your home when making underwriting decisions. The condition of your house is very much their business. Why is an aerial photograph of your roof, which everybody in the world already has on Google Maps, such a big deal?

I think the issue is that in some cases the information is inaccurate and there are sometimes limited avenues for a customer to object if their insurance is cancelled based on inaccurate information.

To the extent that the information is accurate, I agree. If you make an agreement with a company and buy insurance based on your statement that you don't have a pool, but then you do have a pool, I don't see any reason why we should be upset that you didn't get away with lying to the insurance company.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#339

Post by dgoldstein0 » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 10:00 PM UTC

rolandog wrote: post #324

tptacek wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it not a good thing if insurance is more accurately priced? Insurance isn't a redistribution mechanism. And dilapidated roofs aren't a social good. Municipalities have actual redistribution schemes to make these kinds of repairs. I'll note that there's nothing at all redistributive about sneaking a trampoline onto your property, too. Further, I'll note that working class people also take pride in their houses…

Because everything is turned as a cash-grab by corporations and prices never go down.

In some states insurance rates are regulated. Definitely know they are in California.

That said whether the regulators are effective in keeping costs down is a different issue. But my not-very-deep understanding is that risks are rising, e.g. large wildfires in the US West, and increased hurricane frequency and strength on the Gulf Coast, and the only way to deal with that for the insurers is to raise prices, or drop customers - sometimes to the point of abandoning the market altogether. This sounds like another piece in that trend.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#340

Post by wombatpm » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 10:01 PM UTC

worik wrote: post #298

tptacek wrote: post #294

I don't really understand the privacy concern here. To wit: insurers can demand actual inspection of your home when making underwriting decisions. The condition of your house is very much their business. Why is an aerial photograph of your roof, which everybody in the world already has on Google Maps, such a big deal?

The problem is the culling Insurance companies are very keen to get as much risk as possible off their books before the climate gets even more extreme in its volatility Good goes with bad, so long as the bad goes, some good going too is undesirable but OK because they are aware if the catastrophic climate events looming The insurance companies are behaving logically, probably legally IANAL, but for people who are sim…

Insurance companies want money to come in and never go out. If they could they would sell life insurance to dead people and homeowners insurance to the homeless.