
Admiral to price car insurance based on Facebook posts - r0h1n
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/02/admiral-to-price-car-insurance-based-on-facebook-posts
======
iwillreply
Blocked by Facebook: [https://news.fastcompany.com/facebook-has-blocked-a-car-
insu...](https://news.fastcompany.com/facebook-has-blocked-a-car-insurer-from-
profiling-users-to-find-out-if-theyre-safe-drivers-4023658)

~~~
andybak
Looks like episode 1 of this series of Black Mirror has got them spooked. ;-)

Good call by Facebook in my opinion.

~~~
anexprogrammer
Or they simply haven't agreed to sell that data to Admiral, _yet._

~~~
tdb7893
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.

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herghost
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.

~~~
jpalomaki
I would assume things like income and education are already now used in this
kind of pricing decisions.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
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
You can volunteer that you are a college graduate to get a discount.

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bitJericho
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
> 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.

~~~
bitJericho
Just hypothesizing.

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faitswulff
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...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/nov/02/facebook-admiral-car-
insurance-privacy-data)

> 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
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
Next step. Agree.

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

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martin-adams
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
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.

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teekert
"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
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.

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newscracker
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.

~~~
MichaelBurge
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
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/](https://stratechery.com/2016/what-facebook-is-and-isnt/) \- this is a
great read on this topic of how people present themselves on Facebook

------
crottypeter
from the comments:
[https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press/releases/2016/facebook...](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press/releases/2016/facebook-
is-right-to-stop-admiral-insurance-from-using-its-data)

also related: [https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2016/facebook-is-
right-...](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2016/facebook-is-right-to-
sink-admirals-app)

------
untilHellbanned
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
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
It could also fake fitness bands data, since they are eligible for insurance
discounts as well.

------
MasterScrat
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?

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sickbeard
Having a "social media" account seems more like a pita than it's actually
worth.

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throwaway98237
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.

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dazc
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.

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walshemj
Also discriminates against dyslexics.

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fredley
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
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).

~~~
fredley
With full support from both the Tories and Labour, there's nowhere serious to
turn.

~~~
noir_lord
Yep, We really need to get rid of FPTP but that requires the turkeys voting
for Christmas and the last campaign was _foul_.

[https://dailyelection.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/no-to-
av-s...](https://dailyelection.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/no-to-av-
soldier.jpg)

[https://dailyelection.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/no-to-
av-m...](https://dailyelection.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/no-to-av-
maternity.jpg)

How the _fuck_ do we let them get away with shit like that.

