Good call by Facebook in my opinion.
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.
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.
However, employment status was a very significant factor.
In that sense, it seems as okay as charging poor people a higher interest rate, which seems fine to me.
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.
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.
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.
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."
Do you want to trade access to your FB account for £350 ?
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.
In other news, looking forward to the disruption self driving cars will have on the auto insurance industry.
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.
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.
> 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...
It's less work to just switch insurance companies.
[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
Especially over a longer time periods.
also related: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2016/facebook-is-right-...
Are there laws that require insurance pricing to be transparent?
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).
