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Insurance companies will be all over personal data (search, location, and profiles) so that they can statistically discriminate against their clients beyond wha

by kian 5y ago

Insurance companies will be all over personal data (search, location, and profiles) so that they can statistically discriminate against their clients beyond what they have been thus far able. HIPAA is fairly toothless in many ways, and doesn't even cover cases like this. It's time to start implementing criminal penalties for illegally exfiltrating private health data before it is too late.

atatatat 5y ago
Google has the majority of it via legal means..., we need to get a handle on our governments before we even try to protect our digital info...
hermannj314 5y ago
Isn't statistical discrimination the basis of fair cohort definition in insurance underwriting? What do you think insurance, as a financial product, is? An entity looking to hedge against financial uncertainty relies on being placed in a cohort that represents equivalent risk profile to their own.
- plainnoodles 5y ago
  I think insurance is nothing but a serendipitous, temporary alignment of finance, levels of information availability/tracking, and the fundamental right of all humans to life and health. Right now, despite their best efforts, insurance companies are still fairly limited in their ability to discriminate and exclude certain swathes of people from access to affordable healthcare. Once they manage it, they become useless to us as a society. Ideally, we as a society want all of our members to be able to see a doctor when they are sick or injured. Ideally, insurance companies want to exclusively insure people to whom they will never need to pay out. They optimize their profit margin to be essentially 100%. Which then makes them a leech, and they're probably a leech well below 100% as well. (To be fair, since the system is completely inhuman, individuals will also play the same game and try to leave the risk pool if they are sufficiently low-risk.) So, there will come a time when we have to either give up any facade that we value human health intrinsically, or we must stop using private insurance as the primary method of ensuring it (no pun intended).
bananapear 5y ago
In the UK it's commonplace for insurers to offer "black box" policies, where a small device including GPS and accelerometers with an mobile internet connection must be fitted to the vehicle in exchange for a discount.
- carlhjerpe 5y ago
  I wouldn't place one of those in my car if it made the insurance free. I understand why they do it(both parties), but I also think it's disgusting.

by kian 5y ago

atatatat 5y ago

Google has the majority of it via legal means..., we need to get a handle on our governments before we even try to protect our digital info...

hermannj314 5y ago

Isn't statistical discrimination the basis of fair cohort definition in insurance underwriting? What do you think insurance, as a financial product, is? An entity looking to hedge against financial uncertainty relies on being placed in a cohort that represents equivalent risk profile to their own.

plainnoodles 5y ago
I think insurance is nothing but a serendipitous, temporary alignment of finance, levels of information availability/tracking, and the fundamental right of all humans to life and health. Right now, despite their best efforts, insurance companies are still fairly limited in their ability to discriminate and exclude certain swathes of people from access to affordable healthcare. Once they manage it, they become useless to us as a society. Ideally, we as a society want all of our members to be able to see a doctor when they are sick or injured. Ideally, insurance companies want to exclusively insure people to whom they will never need to pay out. They optimize their profit margin to be essentially 100%. Which then makes them a leech, and they're probably a leech well below 100% as well. (To be fair, since the system is completely inhuman, individuals will also play the same game and try to leave the risk pool if they are sufficiently low-risk.) So, there will come a time when we have to either give up any facade that we value human health intrinsically, or we must stop using private insurance as the primary method of ensuring it (no pun intended).

bananapear 5y ago

In the UK it's commonplace for insurers to offer "black box" policies, where a small device including GPS and accelerometers with an mobile internet connection must be fitted to the vehicle in exchange for a discount.

carlhjerpe 5y ago
I wouldn't place one of those in my car if it made the insurance free. I understand why they do it(both parties), but I also think it's disgusting.