[herghost]

It's interesting because they clearly believe they have workable actuarial data to support this, so in many ways good on them for using the data that's available.

On the other hand, based on the examples given, it seems this is going to penalise people using language incorrectly - which I would assume can be strongly correlated with poor education. So on that basis, they're going to be saying that poor people are worse drivers and so must pay more? Is that ok?

But the biggest upshot of this whole thing is that suddenly there is a potential for real world financial consequences for what people write online. This is a game changer - and one I would imagine Facebook should be quite worried about.

I hope it triggers the start of a general awakening of the people when it comes to the impact of data overshare.

[aianus]

Well it's apparently already ok to charge me 50% more because I'm young, male, and unmarried. At least you can do something about your spelling and grammar if you try.

[jpalomaki]

I would assume things like income and education are already now used in this kind of pricing decisions.

[Broken_Hippo]

To a point, yes. I don't think they are allowed to know the income in the US - and I'm not sure they can ask your education either.

But they do use credit score, which negatively affects poor people. They say it is because people with poor credit are more likely to file a claim (note it isn't because of poor driving, just simply ability to cover a smaller incident).

They also use crime rates in an area, how far you drive to work, whether or not you have off street parking - and if that parking is by your house or not. All indicators of a person's finances.

Civil status affects insurance rates - after getting divorced, my rates increased. I've never had a ticket nor an accident. (I think they lower after marriage - somehow, you are assumed to be more responsible even though nothing else changed).

It is amazing how much doesn't depend on your actual driving habits. I understand some of it (ie, crime rate, how much you drive to work) because it does increase risk, but not things like whether or not I'm married.

[maxerickson]

You can volunteer that you are a college graduate to get a discount.

[citizenkeen]

Yeah, education totally keeps your rates low in the US. They can't demand to know your education, but since you get a lower rate the better educated you are, you'd certainly volunteer that info.

[pc86]

Credit score does not negatively affect poor people, it negatively affects people with bad credit. There are plenty low-income people with excellent credit because they don't make bad financial decisions, and plenty of high-income people with terrible credit because they don't know how to manage their money.

[tankenmate]

Indeed, often acquired directly, but most often supported through proxies, which often have multiple partial correlations, such as, median house price in the applicant's area, crime rate in the applicant's area, applicant's job title, etc.

[herghost]

That's a good point - maybe this is just the de-cloaking of what already goes on based on a really specific example. Will we generally accept it though, when it's laid out so plainly?

[sesqu]

I can't speak for Admiral, but I was just yesterday looking at local crime statistics, and traffic violations were the one crime that education didn't affect greatly. Education did reduce propensity, but not radically.

However, employment status was a very significant factor.

[MichaelBurge]

Poor people might be less likely to pay for maintenance or preventative measures, so their claims are larger than average. They might also live in areas with more vandalism.

In that sense, it seems as okay as charging poor people a higher interest rate, which seems fine to me.