Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts

46 points by r0h1n 8 years ago | 50 comments
  • iwillreply 8 years ago
    Blocked by Facebook: https://news.fastcompany.com/facebook-has-blocked-a-car-insu...
    • andybak 8 years ago
      Looks like episode 1 of this series of Black Mirror has got them spooked. ;-)

      Good call by Facebook in my opinion.

      • anexprogrammer 8 years ago
        Or they simply haven't agreed to sell that data to Admiral, yet.
        • tdb7893 8 years ago
          People will stop using social media if it's used for stuff like this. I don't think we are in huge danger of it until that changes.
      • paulajohnson 8 years ago
        Also http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37847647
      • herghost 8 years ago
        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 worse drivers and so must pay more? Is that ok?

        But the biggest upshot of this whole thing is that suddenly there is a potential for real world financial consequences for what people write online. This is a game changer - and one I would imagine Facebook should be quite worried about.

        I hope it triggers the start of a general awakening of the people when it comes to the impact of data overshare.

        • aianus 8 years ago
          Well it's apparently already ok to charge me 50% more because I'm young, male, and unmarried. At least you can do something about your spelling and grammar if you try.
          • jpalomaki 8 years ago
            I would assume things like income and education are already now used in this kind of pricing decisions.
            • Broken_Hippo 8 years ago
              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 drive to work, whether or not you have off street parking - and if that parking is by your house or not. All indicators of a person's finances.

              Civil status affects insurance rates - after getting divorced, my rates increased. I've never had a ticket nor an accident. (I think they lower after marriage - somehow, you are assumed to be more responsible even though nothing else changed).

              It is amazing how much doesn't depend on your actual driving habits. I understand some of it (ie, crime rate, how much you drive to work) because it does increase risk, but not things like whether or not I'm married.

              • maxerickson 8 years ago
                You can volunteer that you are a college graduate to get a discount.
                • citizenkeen 8 years ago
                  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.
                  • pc86 8 years ago
                    Credit score does not negatively affect poor people, it negatively affects people with bad credit. There are plenty low-income people with excellent credit because they don't make bad financial decisions, and plenty of high-income people with terrible credit because they don't know how to manage their money.
                  • tankenmate 8 years ago
                    Indeed, often acquired directly, but most often supported through proxies, which often have multiple partial correlations, such as, median house price in the applicant's area, crime rate in the applicant's area, applicant's job title, etc.
                    • herghost 8 years ago
                      That's a good point - maybe this is just the de-cloaking of what already goes on based on a really specific example. Will we generally accept it though, when it's laid out so plainly?
                  • sesqu 8 years ago
                    I can't speak for Admiral, but I was just yesterday looking at local crime statistics, and traffic violations were the one crime that education didn't affect greatly. Education did reduce propensity, but not radically.

                    However, employment status was a very significant factor.

                    • MichaelBurge 8 years ago
                      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.

                    • bitJericho 8 years ago
                      From the article: "The scheme is voluntary, and will only offer discounts rather than price increases, which could be worth up to £350 a year. However, Admiral has not ruled out expanding firstcarquote."

                      This is not a discount for courteous people. What this is is collection of personal data for advertising and data collection (to be resold) and a good way to advertise to people's friends.

                      And 350 a year? I'll believe it when I see it.

                      • andybak 8 years ago
                        > What this is is collection of personal data for advertising and data collection (to be resold) and a good way to advertise to people's friends.

                        I can see nothing to that effect in the linked article. Are you hypothesising or is there something I missed?

                        I'm not saying it's not plausible but the T+Cs should clarify one way or the other.

                    • faitswulff 8 years ago
                      In the sidebar: "Facebook forces Admiral to pull plan to price car insurance based on posts"

                      https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/nov/02/facebook-admir...

                      > Facebook said protecting the privacy of its users was of the utmost importance to it and it had clear guidelines about how information obtained from the site should be used.

                      > Section 3.15 of Facebook’s platform policy states that the social media site’s data should not be used to “make decisions about eligibility, including whether to approve or reject an application or how much interest to charge on a loan”.

                      Well, that didn't last long.

                      • joezydeco 8 years ago
                        So what happens if the user consents to giving that data up?

                        As in: "Welcome to Admiral. We're going to charge you X. If you want the possibility of being charged less, give us your Facebook and Twitter passwords."

                        • nwrk 8 years ago
                          Next step. Agree.

                          Do you want to trade access to your FB account for £350 ?

                        • 8 years ago
                        • martin-adams 8 years ago
                          This to me feels like a step in data privacy that I do not like. Why not issue health insurance based on Google searches?

                          While it's voluntary, it may be seen as ok. But what happens if you opt not to do anything on social media and you end up with a premium penalty, or worse, refusal to be insured. This happens today when applying for a mortgage. If you've never taken a loan and had no credit history, they have no data to score you against.

                          I would prefer a mechanism that analysed people's driving behaviour to assess risk, not what I like on Facebook.

                          • radiorental 8 years ago
                            Apologies.... obligatory reference to Black Mirror. Season 3, Episode 1 'Nosedrive' has covered this to it's dystopian conclusion.

                            In other news, looking forward to the disruption self driving cars will have on the auto insurance industry.

                          • teekert 8 years ago
                            "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 company.

                            • Broken_Hippo 8 years ago
                              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.

                              • aianus 8 years ago
                                If there is true predictive power in the model, the other insurance companies will see their costs (and premiums) rise as lower risk customers switch to Admiral and higher risk customers switch to them.
                              • newscracker 8 years ago
                                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 though this is not in line with Faceboook's ToS). This in turn could mean that the company would be relying on curated and made up information to make decisions.
                                • ominous 8 years ago
                                  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...

                                  • geomark 8 years ago
                                    This looks like yet another business opportunity where online personas are crafted for a fee.
                                    • MichaelBurge 8 years ago
                                      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.

                                      • newscracker 8 years ago
                                        One thing I missed in my point was that many other companies seem to want to exploit (or have already indulged in exploiting) information on social media. This could just be a trigger for other insurance companies to do something similar. Once it becomes somewhat well known, then more people will start curating their social media presence. This curation has already been a big thing on Facebook for other reasons. [1] It's just that the companies may not derive any real value out of such exercises in the long run.

                                        [1]: https://stratechery.com/2016/what-facebook-is-and-isnt/ - this is a great read on this topic of how people present themselves on Facebook

                                      • maxerickson 8 years ago
                                        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.

                                      • crottypeter 8 years ago
                                        from the comments: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press/releases/2016/facebook...

                                        also related: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2016/facebook-is-right-...

                                        • untilHellbanned 8 years ago
                                          And there goes FB's business model. Nobody is going to post anything once people realize their money is at stake. This seems like a good opportunity for a new friends and family social network.
                                          • tonylemesmer 8 years ago
                                            new service idea: PR friendly facebook accounts. Pay £1 / month to have a 2nd facebook account with auto generated posts that get you discounts on car insurance.
                                            • MasterScrat 8 years ago
                                              It could also fake fitness bands data, since they are eligible for insurance discounts as well.
                                            • stephenc_c_ 8 years ago
                                              Or they stop posting what they really think and instead post in a style that gives them the best price.
                                              • dazc 8 years ago
                                                I can see it spawning a few parody accounts but, more likely, not worth the time required to build a plausible profile?
                                                • lawless123 8 years ago
                                                  if the review is automated you just have to make an account plausible to the machine.
                                            • MasterScrat 8 years ago
                                              Is it possible that some insurance company are already doing such things without the customers knowing?

                                              Are there laws that require insurance pricing to be transparent?

                                              • sickbeard 8 years ago
                                                Having a "social media" account seems more like a pita than it's actually worth.
                                                • throwaway98237 8 years ago
                                                  When I gave up FB a good while ago I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. Many thought I was being paranoid. As the months roll by I feel nore and more vindicated.
                                                  • dazc 8 years ago
                                                    I think it's a positive innovation since young people are currently assumed to be a very high risk, deservedly so in many cases but not all.
                                                    • walshemj 8 years ago
                                                      Also discriminates against dyslexics.
                                                      • fredley 8 years ago
                                                        Good. Hopefully this will make people more aware of the consequences of what they share on the internet. With the IP bill in parliament at the moment looking set to pass with minor amendments, this could not be more timely.
                                                        • noir_lord 8 years ago
                                                          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).