Who’d a thunk that “Big Brother” would end up watching us through FaceBook?
As IF credit scoring isn’t invasive enough, we will now soon be penalized because we have friended a knuckleheaded family member, in-law or acquaintance on social media who some personality-void underwriter takes offense to. That’s just peachy.
As an agent and a customer advocate, I find that repulsive. Perhaps we should just cut to the chase, implant a chip in every American and get control of the behavior of the masses… Mmmm -maybe we won’t even need insurance companies then. An upside.
Dee, I am surprised at your apparant ignorance over what is really going on in this society re: individual privacy and respect for personal records “legitimately” obtained by organizations, institutions and corporations that in the effort of feeding their zeal, greed or their hidden agenda. Any statistician with some respect for himself and his professional standing can quickly come to some , to most people, an astounding amount of frightening conclusions about the lives of the people “that are of interest” to whomever entity that are “digging for info. If the American people really understood or were aware if, the concepts that are a basis for this intentional and dangerous behavior, like probability, short term and long term trends, analysis of behavioral changes in people’s lives, purchases and friends obtained, age etc. etc. I think a good number of the people that are on Face Book now would immediately get off and shut their account down. I think I can speak for most Americans when I set my comfort level to include my friends and family. The fact that government, banks, insurance companies and some others request private info, I can not prevent. But I will certainly not volunteer any info in places and to people whose intentions and integrity for which I cannot vouch. And even if I can a this time, who will be in their place 10 years from now??? Just a thought…
If I don’t have a Facebook account, will it be held against me? And I imagine that it will be used to charge higher premiums a lot more than lower premiums.
I am an independent agent for 20+ years. I agree with Dee, however I am all for Financial scoring-I have seen quite a bit of good come of that. But to gauge a client by their social networking relationships is absolutely ridiculous. Who will be the person that sets the bar for what is deemed acceptable or not acceptable? I believe if there is a claim being investigated you may be able to find valuable information from the persons Facebook or other media site to help in the process-but only AFTER the claim has occured. There is too much room for passing unfair and incorrect judgement against someone. Appears this is just an excuse to probe into someones personal life regardless of its relevancy. How do you explain to a client, “sorry, your rate is higher because you happen to be friends with Mr. Jones who appears to like to party a lot”.
Actually, you’re all missing the point. Social media sites are like little bitty search engines. 2 days ago, I had a commercial underwriter use Linkedin to find additional exposures that a client was trying to hide from us. This is just the insurance companies getting as much information as possible to get an accurate rate. It’s not different than your checking to make sure that your daughter’s boyfriend is not a sex offender.
I do understand for commercial purposes only….and I strongly disagree that this has any correlation to checking up to make sure that my kid is not dating a sexual predator.
I think that for reviewing small commercial accounts facebook has become a necessary online resource for review – primarily because it has surplanted the “company website” which for many small operations is too expensive. Facebook provides a very cheap alternative with a wide audience for the small business. But that means that sometimes underwriting research is limited to what it can find on the social networking as far as business and marketing activity of a given commercial concern. With regards to personal lines underwriting, I feel that social network sites should be off limits due to privacy issues. We can garner enough info from the existing 3rd party vendors and hazards mapping to achieve solid risk profiles for a given person/family exposure.
The concern should be not the usage of technology but the lack of interactive response with individuals. What ever happened to knowing your client? Or daughter’s boyfriend? Technology and it’s use has it’s place but it can not and should not be relied on to the degree that it is allowed to replace individual involvement. From what I’ve observed of facebook, it is typically only reflective of a snapshot (like a certificate of insurance) and can not give an overall picture of the individual (similar to the depth and breadth of policy coverages).
Credit score rating isn’t invasive – it is one of the best forecasting tools available for predicting claims. I would imagine Dee is simply angry over the use of credit scores because he/she is losing commission earnings from gouging poor individuals on minimum limit auto coverage.
Dee’s post is so ignorant I’m not sure where to begin. (1) “Big Brother” is not an insurance company, which is what this article is referring to. (2) Unlike information sent securely or given in confidence to others in our homes, by mail or email, the information sent on social networking site is done voluntarily and for recreation. (3) If you post information that can connect you to insurance fraud you should be punished for this. As for using social network information for underwriting, I can’t imagine the courts would ever actually allow this given their tendency to protect consumers over insurers.
Finally, you state you are an agent. However, you then state that it would be an ‘upside’ if we didn’t need insurance companies. If insurers somehow disappeared because they were able to observe all of our actions (which doesn’t actually make sense), you would be out of a job.
My guess is that you are not actually affiliated in any way with the insurance industry, but that you are simply trying to get attention with a ‘they took our job’-mentality post.
Ignorance is in the mirror, my friend, if you’re brave enough to take a look.
I’ve been in insurance longer than you’ve probably been alive. Just because I’m an agent doesn’t mean I live and breathe the corporate mantra…
And I don’t care about the commissions as much as I care about the people I’m here to serve. Credit scoring penalizes people who are having trouble making ends meet. That doesn’t mean they’re bad people or poor risks. Some may be flakes -but I can assure you those with great scores have claims just like everyone and can be ‘flakes’ in their own right as well.
In summary, take your big attitude and -go bite a hot rock. Or something.
Perhaps, but there is a valid statistical connection between credit scoring and claims histories. This is not simply post hoc ergo propter hoc; they are distinctly linked. I’m not happy about it, because my credit is in a shambled right now, but it’s still valid.
Bart – when you start to throw out statistical connections you have to be real careful – there is a big difference between correlation and causation. The box underwriters of which most are these days by design by their masters, point to correlation more than anything else. Underwriters have no authority. If it doesnt fit it is easier to decline and go on to a pristine account but guess what what – there are no pristine accounts anymore. If you dig deep enough there will always been warts. Underwriting 101 – only insure pig iron under water with a rust exlcusion. Yes that was a joke but guess what we rely on technology way too much nowadays which is why we are doomed. The CYLONS aren’t too far off if you get my drift.
If they are not doing this already, I maintain carriers will be using property claims to ‘tier’ auto quotes, auto claims to ‘tier’ homeowners/property quotes, personal claims to tier commercial quotes, etc. The ‘magic bullet’ carriers now possess is comprised of credit profile, tiering, and other available data. The prospect’s ‘lifestyle’ is now used to determine rates – level of education, industry worked in, own vs rent, loss payee or not, mortgagee or not, paying in full, eft, prior carrier’s status, etc. Wait until shoe size, eye color, # of tattoos, height, weight, diet, etc come into play. “Impossible” you exclaim. Don’t bet your next paycheck on it. I am sure ‘studies’ (aka junk science/research) are being conducted right now to validate using all of this type of ‘lifestyle’ data to set/tier insurance rates for auto and home. Eventually all insurance products will follow. Valid or not valid is not relevant as these bogus ‘studies’ will be offered as conclusive proof of the ‘correlation’ and no one can disoute the experts. I predict this is just around the corner if not already here inside the ‘proprietary’ underwriting and tiering profiling and formulas currently being used.
Clarification: “No one can dispute the experts” Have you personally seen the evidence of real years of research proving credit profiling predicts loss potential? If not, their opinions stand unchallenged. I have yet to communicate with any individual who can point to the evidence that can be examined by anyone.
I think the author of the article is far overstating the ease of mining social networking data. It’s tricky, but usable when looking for a specific person. The author likens social networking data mining to using CLUE within the next three years and there is absolutely no way. In order for that to occur then every user would need their profile to be public AND all networking sites would need to use identical front end services to allow for the data requests. There is also the likely curve ball that future legislation will limit the types of online information financial institutions can use.
I think it will remain merely an extra source of information for potential fraud cases.
Matt: You make very, very good points. With current technology, it is very, very difficult to use an automated tool to confirm that the person you’re checking by name is actually the person you’re trying to underwrite, but claims investigations are made on a one-by-one basis.
As an IT networking and information assurance professional, I understand how data mining is done and how easy it is. Its use is already wide-spread. For example, search engines use spiders that crawl across the web, recording each link, along with all of the data associated with that page. Facebook is a very easy place to verify identity. Most provide detailed information, making it virtually indisputable that the profile is, in fact, you. Birth dates, birth years, city of residence, hometown you grew up in, high school attended, year of graduation, colleges attended, years attended or graduated, and the list goes on.
As for the use of CLUE, why would any organization use CLUE when there is information readily available that far exceeds the limitations of CLUE.
If you would like to see what is already being mined on you, go check yourself out with the privacy links associated with Yahoo or Google. What they know is a whole lot more if you sign into your email account before doing searches, without immediately signing out.
As an IT networking and information assurance professional you also know how incredibly unreliable the data mined is as well.
I’m not saying the data is useless. I am fully aware of the extent of information available out there. My point is there isn’t a Department of Insurance in the country that will *knowingly* authorize using the information on social networking sites for pricing. Is it being used today? I have first hand knowledge that it is being used. Not directly, but as a small piece of larger algorithms. There are analytic companies using public databases to validate insurance information. However, these databases are public records and verifiable. A social networking profile page is far from verifiable. There are not legal penalties for providing false information on a social networking site like there are for providing false odometer readings when you sell your car or take it in for a smog check.
Matt do you assume the big data collection firms haven’t already inked secret deals with Google and Facebook to build dossiers of your private information that is not set to be publicly available?
Facebook retains a permanent file of your posts. Chats and even deleted private messages are retained indefinitely. Every picture, every word you or anyone posts on Facebook is PERMANENT.
That’s not even considering the MANY times I’ve been able to access information on Facebook that I shouldn’t have been because of coding and script errors on their website. Heck Facebook’s default security setting does not even use an HTTPS:// encrypted connection.
Blog/Facebook at your own risk.
The only solution is a data protection law with teeth. Force companies by law to purge your information after a specified period of time. Right now they can do whatever for however long they want to. Data storage is cheap and will be cheaper every day.
I’m just an old country boy that likes to know the person I’m doing business with. If I don’t know him good enough to make a call on character then I shouldn’t be dealing with him/her.
Does anyone think that if credit information showed the opposite it is claimed to that the companies would be so hot to use it to help the consumer????
My Pappy said “If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…then it is probably…duck. So you make the call on who is “Big Brother”.
Well then…I guess unemployement will be on the rise. Let’s fire all engineers and underwrite based upon what we find on the internet…..take it one more step in another 10 years….let’s get rid of the underwriters and use computer recognition technology to rate the customer.
Insurance companies have been raping people for as long as they have been around. And corrupt companies without consciences would hurt people like me who blows the whistle on criminal companies who are doing immoral things. This violation of privacy is the top of the huge list of crimes they do and is worthy of justifying a bloody civil war against satan’s sons and daughters. I KNOW who they are using and who is using them to hurt honest people who refuse to sell their souls to satan….YOU KNOW that’s right! We were born into the sins of knowing right from wrong and greed and lusts are the perfect tools satan uses to claim souls for his own. And that is where those influential ETs comes in. There are satan ones controlling many companies and GOD’S Angel ETs that is going bust all slimy vipers that truly deserves it!
Perhaps a consequence could be that we all begin behaving the same way to avoid punitive rates and fees. Behavior modification starts to develop, so that we say only those things that we’re expected to say. Do creative thinking and freedom of expression disappear?
Who’d a thunk that “Big Brother” would end up watching us through FaceBook?
As IF credit scoring isn’t invasive enough, we will now soon be penalized because we have friended a knuckleheaded family member, in-law or acquaintance on social media who some personality-void underwriter takes offense to. That’s just peachy.
As an agent and a customer advocate, I find that repulsive. Perhaps we should just cut to the chase, implant a chip in every American and get control of the behavior of the masses… Mmmm -maybe we won’t even need insurance companies then. An upside.
Dee, do you have a Facebook account?
Dee, I am surprised at your apparant ignorance over what is really going on in this society re: individual privacy and respect for personal records “legitimately” obtained by organizations, institutions and corporations that in the effort of feeding their zeal, greed or their hidden agenda. Any statistician with some respect for himself and his professional standing can quickly come to some , to most people, an astounding amount of frightening conclusions about the lives of the people “that are of interest” to whomever entity that are “digging for info. If the American people really understood or were aware if, the concepts that are a basis for this intentional and dangerous behavior, like probability, short term and long term trends, analysis of behavioral changes in people’s lives, purchases and friends obtained, age etc. etc. I think a good number of the people that are on Face Book now would immediately get off and shut their account down. I think I can speak for most Americans when I set my comfort level to include my friends and family. The fact that government, banks, insurance companies and some others request private info, I can not prevent. But I will certainly not volunteer any info in places and to people whose intentions and integrity for which I cannot vouch. And even if I can a this time, who will be in their place 10 years from now??? Just a thought…
If I don’t have a Facebook account, will it be held against me? And I imagine that it will be used to charge higher premiums a lot more than lower premiums.
I am an independent agent for 20+ years. I agree with Dee, however I am all for Financial scoring-I have seen quite a bit of good come of that. But to gauge a client by their social networking relationships is absolutely ridiculous. Who will be the person that sets the bar for what is deemed acceptable or not acceptable? I believe if there is a claim being investigated you may be able to find valuable information from the persons Facebook or other media site to help in the process-but only AFTER the claim has occured. There is too much room for passing unfair and incorrect judgement against someone. Appears this is just an excuse to probe into someones personal life regardless of its relevancy. How do you explain to a client, “sorry, your rate is higher because you happen to be friends with Mr. Jones who appears to like to party a lot”.
I knew there was a reason I concelled my Facebook a few months after I started it.
Actually, you’re all missing the point. Social media sites are like little bitty search engines. 2 days ago, I had a commercial underwriter use Linkedin to find additional exposures that a client was trying to hide from us. This is just the insurance companies getting as much information as possible to get an accurate rate. It’s not different than your checking to make sure that your daughter’s boyfriend is not a sex offender.
David Berry
http://www.txinsurancepro.com/dallas-business-insurance
I do understand for commercial purposes only….and I strongly disagree that this has any correlation to checking up to make sure that my kid is not dating a sexual predator.
I think that for reviewing small commercial accounts facebook has become a necessary online resource for review – primarily because it has surplanted the “company website” which for many small operations is too expensive. Facebook provides a very cheap alternative with a wide audience for the small business. But that means that sometimes underwriting research is limited to what it can find on the social networking as far as business and marketing activity of a given commercial concern. With regards to personal lines underwriting, I feel that social network sites should be off limits due to privacy issues. We can garner enough info from the existing 3rd party vendors and hazards mapping to achieve solid risk profiles for a given person/family exposure.
The concern should be not the usage of technology but the lack of interactive response with individuals. What ever happened to knowing your client? Or daughter’s boyfriend? Technology and it’s use has it’s place but it can not and should not be relied on to the degree that it is allowed to replace individual involvement. From what I’ve observed of facebook, it is typically only reflective of a snapshot (like a certificate of insurance) and can not give an overall picture of the individual (similar to the depth and breadth of policy coverages).
Credit score rating isn’t invasive – it is one of the best forecasting tools available for predicting claims. I would imagine Dee is simply angry over the use of credit scores because he/she is losing commission earnings from gouging poor individuals on minimum limit auto coverage.
Dee’s post is so ignorant I’m not sure where to begin. (1) “Big Brother” is not an insurance company, which is what this article is referring to. (2) Unlike information sent securely or given in confidence to others in our homes, by mail or email, the information sent on social networking site is done voluntarily and for recreation. (3) If you post information that can connect you to insurance fraud you should be punished for this. As for using social network information for underwriting, I can’t imagine the courts would ever actually allow this given their tendency to protect consumers over insurers.
Finally, you state you are an agent. However, you then state that it would be an ‘upside’ if we didn’t need insurance companies. If insurers somehow disappeared because they were able to observe all of our actions (which doesn’t actually make sense), you would be out of a job.
My guess is that you are not actually affiliated in any way with the insurance industry, but that you are simply trying to get attention with a ‘they took our job’-mentality post.
Ignorance is in the mirror, my friend, if you’re brave enough to take a look.
I’ve been in insurance longer than you’ve probably been alive. Just because I’m an agent doesn’t mean I live and breathe the corporate mantra…
And I don’t care about the commissions as much as I care about the people I’m here to serve. Credit scoring penalizes people who are having trouble making ends meet. That doesn’t mean they’re bad people or poor risks. Some may be flakes -but I can assure you those with great scores have claims just like everyone and can be ‘flakes’ in their own right as well.
In summary, take your big attitude and -go bite a hot rock. Or something.
Perhaps, but there is a valid statistical connection between credit scoring and claims histories. This is not simply post hoc ergo propter hoc; they are distinctly linked. I’m not happy about it, because my credit is in a shambled right now, but it’s still valid.
Bart – when you start to throw out statistical connections you have to be real careful – there is a big difference between correlation and causation. The box underwriters of which most are these days by design by their masters, point to correlation more than anything else. Underwriters have no authority. If it doesnt fit it is easier to decline and go on to a pristine account but guess what what – there are no pristine accounts anymore. If you dig deep enough there will always been warts. Underwriting 101 – only insure pig iron under water with a rust exlcusion. Yes that was a joke but guess what we rely on technology way too much nowadays which is why we are doomed. The CYLONS aren’t too far off if you get my drift.
Maybe it’s to my advantage that social networks don’t interest me. Plus, I’m old and crispy and would probably do myself bodily harm trying to log in.
BTW- B. Jones, I think you over reacted to Dee’s post. Her remarks were at least a little bit tongue-in-cheek.
If they are not doing this already, I maintain carriers will be using property claims to ‘tier’ auto quotes, auto claims to ‘tier’ homeowners/property quotes, personal claims to tier commercial quotes, etc. The ‘magic bullet’ carriers now possess is comprised of credit profile, tiering, and other available data. The prospect’s ‘lifestyle’ is now used to determine rates – level of education, industry worked in, own vs rent, loss payee or not, mortgagee or not, paying in full, eft, prior carrier’s status, etc. Wait until shoe size, eye color, # of tattoos, height, weight, diet, etc come into play. “Impossible” you exclaim. Don’t bet your next paycheck on it. I am sure ‘studies’ (aka junk science/research) are being conducted right now to validate using all of this type of ‘lifestyle’ data to set/tier insurance rates for auto and home. Eventually all insurance products will follow. Valid or not valid is not relevant as these bogus ‘studies’ will be offered as conclusive proof of the ‘correlation’ and no one can disoute the experts. I predict this is just around the corner if not already here inside the ‘proprietary’ underwriting and tiering profiling and formulas currently being used.
“Studies” and “Junk Science” *waves dismissively in the general direction of the scientists and mathematicians*
LOL
Clarification: “No one can dispute the experts” Have you personally seen the evidence of real years of research proving credit profiling predicts loss potential? If not, their opinions stand unchallenged. I have yet to communicate with any individual who can point to the evidence that can be examined by anyone.
I think the author of the article is far overstating the ease of mining social networking data. It’s tricky, but usable when looking for a specific person. The author likens social networking data mining to using CLUE within the next three years and there is absolutely no way. In order for that to occur then every user would need their profile to be public AND all networking sites would need to use identical front end services to allow for the data requests. There is also the likely curve ball that future legislation will limit the types of online information financial institutions can use.
I think it will remain merely an extra source of information for potential fraud cases.
Matt: You make very, very good points. With current technology, it is very, very difficult to use an automated tool to confirm that the person you’re checking by name is actually the person you’re trying to underwrite, but claims investigations are made on a one-by-one basis.
Regardless, I cancelled my Facebook account.
Sorry, Matt, you are wrong on this one.
As an IT networking and information assurance professional, I understand how data mining is done and how easy it is. Its use is already wide-spread. For example, search engines use spiders that crawl across the web, recording each link, along with all of the data associated with that page. Facebook is a very easy place to verify identity. Most provide detailed information, making it virtually indisputable that the profile is, in fact, you. Birth dates, birth years, city of residence, hometown you grew up in, high school attended, year of graduation, colleges attended, years attended or graduated, and the list goes on.
As for the use of CLUE, why would any organization use CLUE when there is information readily available that far exceeds the limitations of CLUE.
If you would like to see what is already being mined on you, go check yourself out with the privacy links associated with Yahoo or Google. What they know is a whole lot more if you sign into your email account before doing searches, without immediately signing out.
Best of Luck to you …
As an IT networking and information assurance professional you also know how incredibly unreliable the data mined is as well.
I’m not saying the data is useless. I am fully aware of the extent of information available out there. My point is there isn’t a Department of Insurance in the country that will *knowingly* authorize using the information on social networking sites for pricing. Is it being used today? I have first hand knowledge that it is being used. Not directly, but as a small piece of larger algorithms. There are analytic companies using public databases to validate insurance information. However, these databases are public records and verifiable. A social networking profile page is far from verifiable. There are not legal penalties for providing false information on a social networking site like there are for providing false odometer readings when you sell your car or take it in for a smog check.
Matt do you assume the big data collection firms haven’t already inked secret deals with Google and Facebook to build dossiers of your private information that is not set to be publicly available?
Facebook retains a permanent file of your posts. Chats and even deleted private messages are retained indefinitely. Every picture, every word you or anyone posts on Facebook is PERMANENT.
That’s not even considering the MANY times I’ve been able to access information on Facebook that I shouldn’t have been because of coding and script errors on their website. Heck Facebook’s default security setting does not even use an HTTPS:// encrypted connection.
Blog/Facebook at your own risk.
The only solution is a data protection law with teeth. Force companies by law to purge your information after a specified period of time. Right now they can do whatever for however long they want to. Data storage is cheap and will be cheaper every day.
I’m just an old country boy that likes to know the person I’m doing business with. If I don’t know him good enough to make a call on character then I shouldn’t be dealing with him/her.
Does anyone think that if credit information showed the opposite it is claimed to that the companies would be so hot to use it to help the consumer????
My Pappy said “If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…then it is probably…duck. So you make the call on who is “Big Brother”.
Well then…I guess unemployement will be on the rise. Let’s fire all engineers and underwrite based upon what we find on the internet…..take it one more step in another 10 years….let’s get rid of the underwriters and use computer recognition technology to rate the customer.
Like personal lines does today?
Insurance companies have been raping people for as long as they have been around. And corrupt companies without consciences would hurt people like me who blows the whistle on criminal companies who are doing immoral things. This violation of privacy is the top of the huge list of crimes they do and is worthy of justifying a bloody civil war against satan’s sons and daughters. I KNOW who they are using and who is using them to hurt honest people who refuse to sell their souls to satan….YOU KNOW that’s right! We were born into the sins of knowing right from wrong and greed and lusts are the perfect tools satan uses to claim souls for his own. And that is where those influential ETs comes in. There are satan ones controlling many companies and GOD’S Angel ETs that is going bust all slimy vipers that truly deserves it!
Perhaps a consequence could be that we all begin behaving the same way to avoid punitive rates and fees. Behavior modification starts to develop, so that we say only those things that we’re expected to say. Do creative thinking and freedom of expression disappear?