| |
| |
|
|
Insurance Information |
|
Car Insurance Monitoring for Discounted Insurance Rates - Privacy Devouring Monster Eating Us One Bi
For a price, would you let car insurer along for the ride? - asks a USA Today technology story by Kevin Maney. It seems that Progressive Insurance and IBM have worked out a scheme to pay drivers to be safer - by monitoring their every move in their own cars, and how fast they make that move, and where they park, and what time they drive. The program is being tested in Minnesota and in the U.K. in a privacy busting program that rewards drivers for keeping under the maximum speed limits and driving during safer times of day. It's an interesting twist that is compared here to a shopper reward card that monitors what you buy, although it doesn't give you lower prices if you buy healthy food - which seems like the best analogy. (But it does let the food chains know how often you shop and how much you spend on what types of food, and alcohol, and cigarettes and trashy tabloids.) Drivers must attach an electronic monitor to their cars that downloads information which is generated and stored there in diagnostic chips included in most newer model vehicles. As they drive, it stores current driving behavior - and location - and driving times and at the end of the defined time, drivers take the unit into the house, attach a USB cable and download that information into their computer and transmit it to Progressive. But the insurance discount program does have an interesting twist in the Minnesota test. Apparently drivers who see from their downloaded information (or just know they drove badly at times) that they exceeded maximum speed limits, drove during expensive times (2am when bars close is most expensive, after 11pm is next) can choose NOT to send that information to Progressive and pay the normal undiscounted insurance rate. It appears to have the true benefit of making drivers become more cautious and drive within limits of the law during safe hours. There is nothing wrong with this for those willing to give up the information. This allows those willing to be monitored the choice to send the information to their insurer and get a discount or NOT send it to pay normal rates. It's worth considering. I'm among those who continues to use supermarket loyalty cards, even though I despise the fact that they can see my purchase history and note my travel habits. The savings are just too great to pass up. (I used a false name to set the card up, but quickly noted that they tied together my debit card name and loyalty card purchases, thus gaining that information that I had denied them with the false name - now I use cash.) You certainly can't do the same with the insurance driving discounts. Information must be accurate to properly insure and discount the policy. The UK program is more invasive and offers far less choice. Drivers must always download the information from the car module to gain insurance discounts and the British company monitors more information from those UK drivers. The US version may have some merit if choice remains a part of the equation upon full rollout to American drivers who want that ten percent discount on auto insurance policies in exchange for giving up the privacy of their driving habits. The disturbing part of this, again, as always, is the possible merging of multiple databases to form near perfect surveillance pictures of us with each new development. Our supermarket discounts show that big database what we eat, what else we buy at the grocery, the insurance information defines our travels and schedule, our credit and debit card use defines our spending, travel and lifestyles, while multiple other databases from airline security info to phone records can be merged at any time to form near perfect pictures of our lives for anyone that wants to access it. Once a national ID (driver licenses will soon carry mandatory magnetic information and will serve as a defacto national ID), we can be fully monitored, tracked, analyzed and digitized to form a truly invasive database of numbers and bits of information about each of us. The sources of data about each of us are growing daily. The concern is the loss or abuse of that data through commercial and/or governmental negligence and/or criminal intent. The methods to access that data are growing as the sources proliferate. Privacy is something we give up in small bits for small benefits, like cheaper produce using supermarket loyalty cards and insurance discounts using car monitors hooked up to our insurance carrier. We need laws to control and safegaurd each of those databases and stop any merging of those multiple sources of data into the ultimate Big Brother database. I want my car insurance reduced and I'm willing to consider this newest scheme if I have choice of whether to send my info to my insurer. I will send it when I've been good and won't when I have been less good. But I don't want it merged with my other sources of data or shared among commercial interests who may see fit to sell it to each other. It gets more interesting daily. Who is in control of this privacy devouring data monster? Mike Banks Valentine blogs on privacy issues at: http://PrivacyNotes.com/privacy_blog/ You can subscribe to the RSS feed by entering My Yahoo or My MSN at: http://privacynotes.com/privacy_blog/atom.xml Web Content Resource From http://Publish101.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Insurance - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Gain An Advantage Over Your Competition By Controlling The Cost Of Your Health Insurance As many of us expect, the New Year will bring both tremendous challenges and opportunities for all of us both personally and professionally. Employers continue to face the major challenge of controlling the cost of their health insurance and other employee benefit programs. What Type of Doctor Should I See Under My HSA? You can withdraw money from your Health Savings Account (HSA) to visit an MD, DO or a chiropractor.Since you will be writing a check or using your debit card to pay for these visits at the time of service, you will really notice how much it costs. The Surety Bond Domino Effect I have written many articles about the hard surety bond market. To my surprise many want to know more details as to how we got to where we are at. Converting An Unwanted Life Insurance Policy Into Ca$h Do You Own A Life Insurance Policy That You No longer Need or Want? It is possible that you may be able to can get a CASH settlement in excess of the current cash surrender value by selling your policy in the secondary market to an investor.Reasons To "Sell" A Policy:Family Situations Bankruptcy Estate Reduction Estate Tax Revision Business Was Sold 1035 Exchange Drain On Income Divorce - Separation Death of A Spouse Retirement Declining Health Non-Performing Policy Wealth Planning Work Related ChangesQualifying Types Of Life Insurance:Group Whole Life Term (Convertible) Joint Universal Variable Key Man (business related)Who Is A Qualified Candidate?Mature men and women over age sixty-five years of age who have an existing life insurance policy and whose circumstances have changed since purchasing the policy originally may qualify for a purchase and sale of their policy. Insights Into Your Med-Pay Insurance Coverage While Legal Romantics would like to characterize the trial of a lawsuit as a "Search For Truth" that's not a reality!Cases are decided on the evidence. When reviewing cases before them, judges invariably use the phrase, "The evidence shows", rather than, "The truth of the matter is". How To Save Money On Your Homeowners Insurance? In order to save money on your homeowners insurance you have to consider several price determining factors. One of the biggest factors is whom your insurance provider ends up becoming. Life Insurance: Who Needs It And How Much Do You Need? Your friendly, neighborhood life insurance agent is most likely to answer this question with the word "everybody."The fact is, not everybody does need life insurance. Home Insurance Terms Home insurance, or even homeowners insurance, is an insurance policy that combines insurance on the home, its contents, loss of the use of the home (additional living expenses) and, typically, the more individual possessions of the homeowner, as well as liability insurance for accidents that can transpire at the home.The cost of homeowners insurance scales upward depending on what it would cost to replenish the home, and which extra "riders", meaning extra items to be insured, are bound to the policy. What is Home Insurance? Home Insurance is designed to provide you with financial protection against any damage and possible risks that your property and possessions within it may face against unforeseen events and circumstances.Home insurance is commonly taken to describe both buildings insurance, which insures the fabric of your property, and contents insurance, which covers your belongings. What is Life Insurance? Life Insurance is an insurance policy that provides an agreed amount of cover over an agreed term, so that should you die during the policy term, a lump sum is paid out. Life insurance is considered as the cornerstone of financial planning. Medical Bankrupticies: What You Can Do To Protect Yourself First the bad news: about 2,000,000 personal bankruptcies each year are caused by unexpected medical expenses. Of all those people, 1,500,000 have (or had) health insurance before they ran into difficult financial straights. Your Cars After-impact Diminished Value The(ACV)Actual Cash Value Policy DOES NOT insure the property itself but the VALUE of the property.Okay let's say the insurance company chooses to "Repair" their insureds damaged property (as is their option within their contract of insurance). Taking The Mystery Out Of Long-Term Care Insurance Here's the good news: with improvements in medical technology and healthier lifestyles, people are living longer. Life expectancy today has increased to 83 years, up from 78 years in 1940 (The Shopper's Guide to Long-term Care Insurance from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners). Health Insurance Coverage Health insurance is something that everyone needs today. The rising cost of visiting a health care provider or a hospital stay makes it imperative that everyone have some type of health care coverage. Risk Retention Groups RRG In response to a hard insurance market in the mid 1908's, Congress passed the Liability Risk Retention Act of 1986. The legislation was intended to simplify the regulatory process for affinity groups such as doctors, real estate developers etc, who wanted to find an alternative to the and unavailability high cost of certain types of insurance coverage. Discount Car Insurance Brokers - Get Amazing Comparisons To get the cheapest possible quote for your car insurance, your best bet is an online discount car insurance broker. A broker does not deal with one specific car insurance company, but rather searches through every available company to find you the best possible quote. Individual or Family Health Insurance Options As more and more individuals working at home with or without families find themselves without some kind of group health insurance. Sometimes even working at a job, no health insurance is even offered. How Do I Lower My Auto Insurance Premiums? It seems as though the price of everything is on the rise. The amount a house may have cost in the early 70s is how much you will pay for a new car in the 21st century. Saving on Home Insurance: Tips for Cutting Costs Everyone is searching for a way of cutting costs, a method to lower their overall monetary expenses. Saving on home insurance is a reasonable, viable option when choosing to take control of your finances. Mortgage Insurance Plans: How Good Is Yours? Mortgage insurance, to pay off a mortgage, is something you'll inevitably be asked to take out by the bank. Mortgage insurance is necessary so that if something happens to you or your spouse then your loan will be paid off which is good news for your family and the bank.
|
|||||||||||||||||
