Monday, November 28, 2016

Social media posts determine the premium for the motor insurance

Author Bio : Anand Rajendran is a freelance writer living in Chennai, India. His interest in personal finance and budgeting began when he was earning an MFA in theater, living in one of the most expensive cities in the country (Chennai, TN) on a student's budget. Today, he writes for a number of websites and keeps up his own Classic Car Insurance company named Sysive in UK.

One of the car insurance companies is looking on the social media pages of the people and price the premium accordingly.
Premium based on social interaction
The British car insurance company, Admiral has designed a new algorithm that will rate the drivers as safe drivers based on their interaction with their friends and family members on Facebook. And the people who were found to have impetuous behavior had to pay high premium than the ones considered as safe drivers. The motor insurance company states that the posts on the social media network help them to analyze the risk each customer pose depending on certain criteria.
For example, people who write list will set up a concrete place and time to meet their friends, and they are more precise- they write in more specific and short sentence have the personality of safe drivers. While the company also suggests that they consider people who use more exclamation marks, using the words ‘never’ and ‘always’ in the conversation instead of ‘maybe’ are considered as overconfident drivers. However, the first time drivers have to take the pilot ‘firstcarquote’.
The data scientist behind the new system is Yossi Borenstein; he said that the new system can be transformational and revolutionary idea in the market. He explained that the analysis is not built on the basis of a specific model, but it is based on thousands of combinations of phrases, words and likes that constantly vary with the evidences that are obtained from the data. And this reflects on how a person behaves in the social media, and some assumptions are designed accordingly to understand how a safe driver will look like. 
Firstcarquote app
This is a new app introduced by the British car insurance company, Admiral. The app targets the young and new drivers who are planning to buy a car or driving a car for the first time. The app aims to offer the drivers with a simple and quick quote process, while educating them about the motor insurance and safe driving technique. 
The car owners have to register in the official website of the insurance company and have to fill in the registration form and agree to the policy terms and conditions. Then they have to connect using their Facebook login, where they have to answer ten questions and get a quote. The app offers the users with five percent to fifteen percent discount on their motor insurance, in exchange for accessing their Facebook data. This new system represents a setback for all the insurance companies in the insurance industry. And they hope to collect the growing percentage of the information about the users to set the prices and premiums in the years to come.
The new scheme is voluntary and offers only discounts that can be worth three hundred and fifty pounds. The increasing growth of the personal technology and the social media platform has paved way for the insurance companies and its employers bulk of data that they can access the to analyze the employees or the customers. According to the British car insurance company, the insurers are looking on how they can make use of the fitness trackers and the smart watches to monitor the health condition of the users. 
For example, Apple watches are sold by the Vitality to all the life insurance and health insurance customers with price depending on the exercise the users do while having the watch. 
Privacy Protection
The social media app, Facebook said that the new system introduced by the insurance company will be in breach of its terms if the company uses the personal info of the person to set the premium. It is the most popular social media platform is accessed by more the ninety percent of the teenagers, adults and elders around the world and can be accessed through the desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets by using the data connection. 
 The spokesperson of Facebook said that the most important terms of the platform is to maintain and protect the user’s privacy. The social media website has made clear guidelines that will prevent the user information from being obtained to make decisions based on the eligibility. 
The users of the social media platform are protected by the guidelines of Facebook and no company can access the user data to assess their ability. The platform allows the use of the user account only for the login and verification purpose. 
Not a welcoming system
The concept of analyzing the social media post to determine once stability is not accepted by many experts in the industry. If a person is messy or a hot-headed, it does not mean that the person is an erratic driver or a person who is tidy and is away from parties is a good driver. There are no clear distinguishing factors that determine a person is a good or a bad driver, so companies building the computers to determine such things are not technically possible.
The Chief executive officer of the Big Brother Watch, Renate Samson said that the new system is a ploy to get people hand over their personal info so that they will get a good deal of the premiums from their motor insurance. Strict laws are going to be introduced in the coming years to prevent the personal info of the users being used by the companies. 
The data watchdog of the United Kingdom, ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) will ask the insurance company about the techniques that they will use in the user’s data. The officer from ICO said that the insurance company will use the user data in a fair manner, so they have to ensure that the users are informed about how the system will collect their data and use them in a fair manner. The user data that the company uses for assessing will be based on the posts in the social media platform, so the ICO will consider that the user’s privacy is not disturbed while they precede the process and follow the law.
The British car insurer
The trading name of EUI Limited is Admiral. It is a motor insurance company founded in January 1993 and has head offices in Admiral House, Cardiff in Wales. The car insurance company has offices in India, Swansea, Halifax and Newport. The company is a subsidiary of the Admiral group, along with their sister companies Bell insurance, elephant.co.uk and Diamond insurance. 
Better deals on motor insurance
The company is specialized in offering the vehicle insurance for high premiums and it mostly targets the young and new drivers in the urban areas of Scotland, London and South East England. 
The car insurance company planned to launch the new system called the firstcarquote app early this November, but the company held the plan because of some technical issues. The experts from the industry said that the car insurance company might even include other websites in the social media platform and raise the price of the insurance for some of the drivers. This new system is a new product in the industry and is new to the public and there are still more things to learn from this concept and the future is not known because there is still a question on how the people will accept the concept of sharing their info. It is a new concept based on the algorithm introduced by the insurance company. 
The company hopes to offer the first time drivers with better deals once when they launch the new app.

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