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from the we-told-you-this-would-happen dept.
In a move that should surprise no-one, The Guardian reports that :
One of the biggest insurance companies in Britain is to use social media to analyse the personalities of car owners and set the price of their insurance.
The unprecedented move highlights the start of a new era for how companies use online personal data and will start a debate about privacy.
Admiral Insurance will analyse the Facebook accounts of first-time car owners to look for personality traits that are linked to safe driving. For example, individuals who are identified as conscientious and well-organised will score well.
The insurer will examine posts and likes by the Facebook user, although not photos, looking for habits that research shows are linked to these traits. These include writing in short concrete sentences, using lists, and arranging to meet friends at a set time and place, rather than just "tonight".
As usual the insurer claims that this is "voluntary," where "voluntary" means you'll pay an extra amount up to £350 if you choose to protect your privacy.
The long term goal is to add other social media platforms, and yes, "...we've been working closely with Facebook in Europe to get the service ready"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by isostatic on Wednesday November 02 2016, @10:40AM
Don't worry - the free market will sort this out, the invisible hand means that if this is good it will catch on, and if it's bad admiral will suffer.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Webweasel on Wednesday November 02 2016, @10:52AM
Will it?
The free market does not like my car (Toyota Celica GT4 - Japanese grey import), to the extent that I can find very few insurers who will give me a policy, despite having 15 years no claims bonus with 9 of those on the car.
I am with Admiral because they will insure the car (£280 a year fully comp). Apparently the free market thinks my car is a high risk and won't even consider insuring it. 15 years no claims and I'm a risk? Fuck the free market, its retarded.
However my real question is:
I insure with Admiral and do not have a Facebook account, what are the consequences?
I'm guessing I won't get their discount, but I'm not a new customer so I already have a massive discount through no claims....
So will Admiral think "This guy is not on facebook, therefore has no friends and does not go out socially, therefore drives less and is less of a risk"?? I seriously doubt it.
So now I have to fake a facebook profile (And some friends?) to make it look like I'm in their "acceptable social profile" in order to get a discount on my car insurance? Would that be fraud? I'm guessing yes.
Or does not being on facebook mean I am conscientious and well-organised????
Can they use my Karma rating on soylent instead?
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 3, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday November 02 2016, @11:16AM
> So now I have to fake a facebook profile (And some friends?) to make it look like I'm in their "acceptable social profile" in order to get a discount on my car insurance? Would that be fraud? I'm guessing yes.
Obviously it depends how much of your £280 they will discount for using the right words in your fake profile, but if you can set up a little facebook profile in an hour it might be worth your time.
Think of it as getting paid to type in a bunch of crap into a computer, which is all most of us round here do all day anyway.
Of course, if you're going to spend time on it, why not write a script / bot that would take the drudge out of creating a facebook account and populating it with insurance-friendly content? User would still have to enter some authentic data and complete the captchas, but the 'bot could then automatically fill in a few dozen "I am currently organising my socks by colour. Maybe then I will meet my friends at 8:43 sharp" posts.
(Score: 2) by Sarasani on Wednesday November 02 2016, @11:34AM
Think of it as getting paid to type in a bunch of crap into a computer, which is all most of us round here do all day anyway.
You get paid to post on SoylentNews?
(Score: 2) by ticho on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:33PM
Wait, you don't?
(Score: 4, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday November 02 2016, @02:18PM
Sure I do! BTW Microsoft is awesome, global warming is fake and smoking cleans your lungs.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 02 2016, @06:06PM
Oh, excellent. I'm glad you have a succession plan in place, Mr. Johnson.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:06PM
Of course, if you're going to spend time on it, why not write a script / bot
Or if they're offering $350 why not buy my service that costs $100? Seems a fair split.
Note that burner FB accounts for buying "likes" cost way the hell less than $100 per account.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @11:36AM
Are you sure that your risk is the reason why they won't insure you? There are likely to be risks directly associated with the car and its grey import status that are affecting the decision. It may be that insurers aren't interested in insuring a car where even a slight knock might mean having to get work done at a specialist workshop, using parts that have to be individually imported from half the world away. The fact that it is also a fairly high-performance car means they might just take a look at it and go "nah".
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Webweasel on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:26PM
I work for a car insurance company so I can offer a little incite:
All insurance in the UK is run as a loss leader. No one makes a profit on you until you have renewed for the 3rd year in a row (When your premium is bumped up and we hope you don't read the renewal properly)
This wasn't the case until the late 2000's. After 2008 a lot of people took the risk of not insuring their cars, who then had accidents and the insurance companies found they could not get their money back, as the other driver in the crash had no insurance. Combine these two factors and insurance companies became very risk adverse around 2010. Premiums jumped around 10% across the board. Add in the 10 people in a car that pulls out in front of you and they all claim for whiplash they don't have AND the ambulance chaser lawyers, insurance companies started to struggle to make a profit at all.
At the same time they tried to reduce costs. You could insure a grey import with just about anyone up until about 2008, as the market hardened as described above, the cost of rating these cars in the system was prohibitively higher and a lot of companies just wrote off the cars as uninsurable.
Now the fact that my car is 100% identical to the British model (Except the ECU, tuned for 100ron Jap petrol rather than 97 ron UK petrol) is irrelevant to them its cheaper not to bother to rate the cars as the market is so small.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by yarp on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:57PM
This is interesting. I knew profit margins were slim due to introductory discounts (and generous referral fees), but didn't realise the premiums were sold at an outright loss until the _third_ year. I haven't experienced many occasions where even the first renewal quote has been competitive. The rash of comparison sites which appeared around the turn of the century can't have been all that good for insurers' bottom lines.
Home insurance, however, doesn't seem to be as volatile. I've had renewal quotes that were as good as I could find shopping around.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 02 2016, @11:54AM
That's pretty much what I've always done with social media, ie. very selectively post material to project that "acceptable social profile." The stuff I post is true, nothing is fabricated, but it's consciously curated to fit that profile. I mentioned this before on SN a couple years ago and one or two people flipped out on me, but this article is exactly why I believe it's going to be an advisable practice for the foreseeable future.
Back in 2003 when I was very active in grassroots politics I met a fellow activist and FLOSS geek who worked at Acxiom. This was before Facebook and Twitter hit the scene. Friendster and Meetup.com were the social media plays du jour. The shenanigans he told me about Acxiom's data mining and aggregation activities made my blood run cold, such that it became clear to me that as things progress there will be no way to avoid being profiled in the datasphere. The only thing you can do is project what you want people to see, and by people it's safest to assume "people who mean you ill."
Some day the Revolution will come, the mega corporations will be undone, and the absolute Right to Privacy will be enshrined in the new Constitution, but until then assume that the worst thing that can be done with your data, will eventually be done.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Webweasel on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:28PM
Suddenly I see a job market for "Social media curator".
Ofc, over time the insurance companies will latch onto this happening and realise their stats are useless because everyone's gaming the system.
And the pendulum swings from one extreme back to the other.
Your facebook profile is too perfect so we doubt it and charge you extra....
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:41PM
Believe it or not that's already happened with celebrities, politicians, and other public personae. About 6 years ago in New York all the big PR firms went on a hiring spree for "social media experts." They were staffing up that very position, "social media curator," except they referred to it as "reputation management."
All the jockeying on social media for Hillary and Trump has been done by those paid shills. Well, at least for Hillary. Many of Trump's supporters seem to be honestly enthusiastic about him, whereas Hillary's supporters have all the energy of the Walking Dead. You can tell by the way that the pro-Hillary social media tend to cite policy positions that are taken verbatim from campaign press releases; it's because they're old school and insist that everyone stays "on message," rather than effectively emulating the real support of real people who can't cite policy and tend to gush about candidates they truly like and support.
So, if Hillary winds up clawing her way into the Whitehouse there will be a growing demand for "social media curators," and Soylentils looking for work should keep an eye out for those new positions. But fair warning: if you take a job like that you have to simulate enthusiasm for clients who mostly deserve universal approbation and loathing. In other words, you would be trading your soul for a paycheck.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @02:32PM
If Trump wins there will be a growing demand for prozac.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 03 2016, @12:56AM
If Hillary wins there will be a growing demand for bullets.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03 2016, @10:01AM
"We love our country so much we can't wait to ignore the legitimate results of the election and overthrow its constitutional form of government!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03 2016, @09:55AM
From what I've seen, they're only enthusiastic about what they think he'll do - like deport people based on their religion (unconstitutional), jail his political rival (actions of a despot), etc - and their irrational hatred of Hillary over manufactured non-issues ("Emails!" while ignoring that Bush and Cheney deleted 22 million emails after a subpoena and "Benghazi!" while ignoring that more diplomats died under every previous Secretary of State and that that SoS doesn't fucking deploy troops in the first place, not to mention the Bush admin literally outing a CIA spy and then committing perjury about it during the investigation, etcetc; if you're going to hate Hillary, at least do it for real reasons instead of being a fucking massive hypocritical lost in tribalism).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @04:54PM
>I insure with Admiral and do not have a Facebook account, what are the consequences?
Or this can be gamed, by creating a presence specifically to manicure & groom your 'perceived' online persona- which will be an upstanding citizen without blemish.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday November 02 2016, @11:40PM
> Fuck the free market, its retarded.
Why is it that insurance on other things, even your home, is cheaper than car insurance (unless you really are loaded)? I always thought it was due to the lack of the free market in car insurance.
In a nutshell, you are a captive market. The government has forced everyone to have car insurance, which means you have no choice. No matter how much the insurance companies charge, you have to pay, or not have a car at all.
That is not a free market, a free market would be if you could choose to not insure your car, just like you can choose not to insure your phone, or your house, or your life. Not saying it is a good idea to allow this, but that it isn't exactly a free market. Your choices are limited.
On the other hand, I don't get why insurance is so odd in the UK. You insure the driver, not the car, which is a bit odd for me. For example in France you insure the car, and once insured anyone with a licence can drive t. No "Named drivers", or "multi driver policy" crap to eck more money out of you.
Also, in France they seem to manage to have far cheaper insurance policies. I have to pay between £700 and £900 a year for my car insurance, whereas I can get the same car insured in France for about 75 euros a year (and that is EU wide insurance, so up until Brexit, it is actually valid in the UK).
This would have made excellent free-market competition, but in the UK they banned foreign registered and insured cars from staying in the country for more that 6 months at a time, otherwise everyone would have registered their car abroad, and saved a bundle (and the local insurance companies would either have to compete, or go bust)
However, from what I see the car insurance setup in the UK is not "Free market" at all, rather it is protectionist and coercing, and seems to work to the benefit to the few insurance companies out there (almost all insurance "companies" in the UK are just fronts for 4-5 massive underwriters).
What the UK needs in my mind is more deregulation and free-market in the insurance industry. Ironically like the oft hated EU "socialist" structure for car insurance (the EU has done a lot of things badly, but car insurance deregulation and cross EU competition drove prices down is one of the good things, along with scrapping roaming charges and Shengen).