Admiral to begin pricing car insurance based on social media posts

jpttaylor

Link

And so it begins, literally weeks after the new series of Black Mirror.

It does mention in the article that it's optional and needs refining, but the idea of it is a bit unsettling. I don't know whether posting Guardian articles makes me more or less likely to crash into people.

Part of me hopes this is just a desperate grab for publicity rather than the future.

Thoughts on this dark new development for humanity?

fretmeister

It's not publicity.

They were banned from selling injury details to solicitors. They need a new income stream.

Now they'll be selling data to other marketing companies instead.

eSully

Just reading about this. Apparently Facebook will be blocking it

https://news.fastcompany.com/facebook-has-blocked-a-car-insurer-from-profiling-users-to-find-out-if-theyre-safe-drivers-4023658

digitalscream

So...what it boils down to is insurance discounts for people who use correct grammar, if I'm reading that right.

I fully support this.

Sambostar

I knew there was a reason my insurance premium went up £600 this year.

HAL9000

Will the insurance documentation for users ofTwitter contain no more than 140 characters?

benmurray85

Because everybody knows that we all portray an extremely accurate version of ourselves on social media

thecolourbox

Last week I posted a semi sarcastic diagram about how to use traffic islands correctly so looks like I'm actually quids in

TheBlueWolf

Anyone who doesn't know me too well would think I was a deranged serial killer clown from a look at my FailBork profile. Thankfully the people who do know me just think I'm deranged lol 

Mind you they're offering discounts only and I know a good place to hide bodies.* I shall keep  an eye out for cheap, inconspicuous vans...


*Actually I met a guy who said his friend might know. Allegedly

randella

Shot out of the water by Facebook before it got going.  Seems Zuckerberg doesn't want any nasty money-making info hoarding plans interfering with his own money-making info hoarding empire.

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

Edit - beaten by @eSully but it does now seem that Admiral has made it official - no dice.

randella

Sambostar said:

I knew there was a reason my insurance premium went up £600 this year.

It'd go up a sight more than that if they had a Fretboard account they could skim...

mynamesnotbob

benmurray85 said:

Because everybody knows that we all portray an extremely accurate version of ourselves on social media

A mad nut job who over reacts to everything, whilst oversharing everything about their life on Facebook rarely seems to be the sensible one in real life. People pretend to be cooler, and more popular - less of a basket case appears to be a harder thing to fight

octatonic

digitalscream said:

So...what it boils down to is insurance discounts for people who use correct grammar, if I'm reading that right.

I fully support this.

Yeah, this.

strtdv

It is unsettling, but we should be equally unsettled by what Facebook already do with our data. 
I'm not surprised Facebook shot it down, they want to have a monopoly on it.

strtdv