
Allstate uses social media to check claims - us0r
http://www.tearsheet.co/data/allstate-is-watching-you-how-the-insurer-uses-social-media-to-check-claims
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chatmasta
> The tech company [Carpe Data] [0] looks at anything publicly available on
> social media

Keyword being public. I've never understood why people get so upset about this
sort of thing. You are responsible for anything you choose to post publicly.

My feelings would be different if it involved fake accounts friending users
and seeing items meant only for their "friends."

[0] This article is basically an ad for Carpe Data. May as well link to their
site: [https://carpe.io/](https://carpe.io/)

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us0r
Just today I was going to go skiing but my foot hurt so I'm home. Let's
pretend it was something bigger and I've been home and being paid on an
insurance claim. My family makes a new facebook post of last years trip with
all of us in the photo and no description or anything. Carpe does the happy
dance and sends it to Allstate. Allstate says we are not paying your claim and
canceling your policy for fraud.

Now I have to prove the claim, can't get insurance cause I'm on a blacklist
and hell knows what else due to an inaccurate photo scraped by a company
without official access.

You don't see a problem with that?

~~~
bahram_banisadr
Pretty much everything digital has metadata tagged on it including the time at
which the event occurred. Its very easy to prove the timing of the photo in
this hypothetical case.

Insurance is a good that adds to the overall wellbeing of society IF it can be
properly priced - meaning both fraud as well as incorrect denials of claims
damage the insurance companies to properly price coverage and provide
protection for everyone.

Why would we dislike more complete information? Economic systems always work
better with fully informed players.

~~~
FireBeyond
Adobe Lightroom, default options for exporting to JPG:

\- "Remove All Metadata"

\- "Remove Location Information"

\- "Remove Person Information"

_All_ of these are removed by default and you explicitly have to enable them.

~~~
craftyguy
I seriously doubt that most people using social media are running their photos
through Lightroom before posting them online..

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rhizome
Which posting sites don't strip metadata?

~~~
legostormtroopr
Flickr, for one.

I also doubt Facebook throws away photo metadata when an image is uploaded.

The image that gets returned in your browser may have none but the original,
with all its camera-identifying, time-stamped GPS located gold mine will be
intact.

~~~
rhizome
_Flickr, for one._

Yeah, I imagine the putatively photographer sites like Flickr preserve it. My
assumption is that Facebook saves it, removes it, then allows the image to
display. ISTR years ago some controversy about EXIF stalking on FB, but it may
have been another service.

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rietta
A friend of mine worked as a private investigator for years after his dream of
entering law enforcement didn't pan out. His job was mostly investigating
insurance claims. He would actually drive his car and park near the home of
the claimant for days and take photographs of any activity that would tend to
support or disprove their disability claim. He's moved on to another career
now, mostly because the career path in that field was not great.

I'm not seeing how this is more invasive. I mean, people are making certain
content public. Having a PI parked up the block in a car with tinted windows
seems much more invasive and that is business as usual and legal for the
insurance industry.

~~~
amelius
Maybe they do both now?

Also, I assume you can't PI every case. So social media may help as a pre-
selection step for PI-work.

~~~
JackFr
You PI chronic back pain disability claims.

They are expensive to pay out and often real chronic back pain is not easily
differentiated from fake chronic back pain by a physical. The diagnosis is
made based on patient reported pain.

The easiest way to confirm the diagnosis is observe if the claimant is
behaving in a manner consistent with debilitating back pain.

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tyfon
We use facebook all the time in my bank to check on fraud/claims of stolen
credit cards. Once a customer claimed a stolen card but it was used every day
at a specific parking lot. Said customer would post "Checking into work at
xxx" every day on facebook where the specific parking lot was xxx's parking
lot.

Needless to say I don't have a facebook account or post anything using my full
name anywhere public.

The scary part will be when the insurance companies buys a direct feed into
private posts from facebook or google sometime in the future.

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amelius
Soon:

"AllState wants to be friends on Facebook (accept/reject)"

~~~
ceejayoz
No, it'll be "connect your Facebook to your Allstate account to receive
discounts".

~~~
ataturk
And install a tracking device in your car so we catch watch your every move
and second guess everything you do while driving.

~~~
mavrc
I've had a few friends volunteer for this already; in my limited experience
they are typically used only for a period of time (weeks not years) and are
typically marketed as "use our tracking device and get a safety discount."

It strikes me as creepy, but I might think differently about them if I needed
a discount.

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mc32
A good faith effort might be to provide two parallel offers: One based on
using the social media meta data coefficient and its commensurate reduced
fraud rate, a second tier without social meta data coefficient and obviously
without the reduced fraud discount.

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fkj_9
Blank page with third-party Javascript disabled. Boycott Web sites that do
this.

~~~
gruez
works fine with first party js enabled

