October 6, 2021

Can We Trust Insurance Companies With Big Data?

BY: TARTLE

Insurance. No one likes it. No one really wants it. We definitely hate paying for it. And why wouldn’t we? Insurance companies are notorious for not wanting to pay out any money on a claim and sometimes dropping people if they do successfully collect on one. After all, insurance companies aren’t really about protecting you, they’re about making money. As the sniveling weasel in The Incredibles put it, “What about our shareholders? Who’s looking out for them, huh?”

As one would expect, insurance companies are always looking to cut their costs. For that, they have turned to data collection and analysis. TARTLE is of course big on data and what we can learn from it. However, we are not fans of the way insurance companies and pretty much everyone else tends to make use of third party data for their purposes. Not only is the sourcing of the data unethical in itself, it can also wind up being discriminatory. Not intentionally, sometimes assumptions are made that are written into the algorithms that analyze the data. Those assumptions may seem like no big deal at first, but they can be processed in such a way that they exclude far more people than intended, people that seem to fit a given profile but in the end differ in certain important ways the algorithm isn’t meant to look for. That’s one of the dangers of completely automating everything. When an AI is running the show, it doesn’t care about any programmed biases, it just does what it is told and does it completely ruthlessly. That is why Connecticut recently reminded insurers in the tiny state that they need to be careful to avoid any sort of discrimination in their use of data. Easier said than done.

To illustrate that, let’s say the insurance company offered a discount to anyone who linked a Whoop or a Fitbit to their insurance account. That might seem innocuous. Certainly, they are sourcing data in a better than normal way since people have to opt in to share it. However, those things on your wrist cost money. Money that not everyone might be able to afford. Just a Whoop subscription runs around $30 a month. How many people are going to be paying that so they can opt into a discount program? Not many, especially since that discount will probably not defray the costs of the subscription.

On one hand, it seems perfectly reasonable to grant a discount to people who are willing to share more of their health data. Why wouldn’t an insurance company want to incentivize that behavior? Of course they would. On the other hand, not everyone can afford it, as stated above. Which makes this a case of exclusion based on economics. Intentional? Probably not. Not too many people actually wake up in the morning and ask themselves how they can screw over poor people today. Not even people working for an insurance company.

So, what is the solution? How can an insurance company reward customers for sharing their health data without excluding those who can’t afford the necessary devices? TARTLE has exactly the right solution. We offer these companies the chance to reach out directly to their customers. The company can ask its customers on TARTLE to share whatever data they would like and when someone chooses to do so, the company simply pays the person for the data. That is something that virtually anyone can take advantage of. Yes, there are people who can’t afford any sort of device to work with TARTLE on, but if we are being honest, they don’t have insurance anyway. The solutions to that problem are on a whole other level (though there are other ways other organizations can use us to tackle that one). What we offer is the chance for insurance and other companies to interact directly with their customers to get the information they need and for those people to be incentivized. It’s a win/win scenario for everyone willing to take advantage of it.

What’s your data worth? Sign up for the TARTLE Marketplace through this link here.