Is your insurer checking your Facebook page?

How big data and social media might impact your insurance.

Patrick Cairns 29 September 2017

Picture: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

People need to be aware of the implications of what they post online writes Patrick Cairns.

Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, the chances are it’s being recorded somehow. And it’s also probable that that record can be accessed.

That is the nature of a highly-connected world. The internet contains far more information about us than most people realise.

Whether its through business sales records, social media or sensors in the internet of things, almost everything we do contributes to what is known as big data. This is a huge volume of information, that is constantly growing, which could potentially be mined by organisations to assist them, and hopefully the public, in a variety of ways.

Speaking in Cape Town this week, Maria Philippides, a director at Norton Rose Fulbright, said that the insurance industry is one area where the potential use of big data is attracting a lot of interest.

“Imagine what insurers can do with all of this information,” she said. “They could access where you shop, what you buy, what your driving habits are. A life insurer can look at what medication you take and how much exercise you get in order to determine what kind of a death risk you are. A long term insurer who specialises in disability products could even look at your genetic code to see whether you’re at risk of suffering a dread disease.”

Doing this successfully would obviously allow insurers to tailor products to individual clients and their specific risks. To some extent this is already happening with short-term insurers monitoring vehicles and offering rebates for good driving.