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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: 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.