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Google Thinks the Insurance Industry May Be Ripe For Disruption
HughPickens.com writes: The insurance industry is a fat target — there's were about $481 billion in premiums in 2013, and agents' commissions of about $50 billion. Now Conor Dougherty writes in the NYT that the boring but lucrative trade has been attracting big names like Google, which has formed a partnership with Comparenow, an American auto insurance comparison site that will give Google access to insurers in Comparenow's network. "A lot of people are waking up to the fact that it's a massive industry, it's old-fashioned, they still use human agents and the commissions are pretty big," says Jennifer Fitzgerald. It may seem like an odd match for Google, whose projects include driverless cars, delivery drones and a pill to detect cancer, but the key to insurance is having lots of data about people's backgrounds and habits, which is perhaps the company's greatest strength. "They have a ton of data on where people drive, how people drive," says Jon McNeill. "It's the holy grail of being able to price auto insurance correctly."
People in the industry and Silicon Valley say it is only a matter of time before online agencies attack the armies of intermediaries that are the backbone of the trade, and Google could present formidable competition for other insurance sellers. As many as two-thirds of insurance customers say they would consider purchasing insurance products from organizations other than insurers, including 23 percent who would consider buying from online service providers such as Google and Amazon. Google Compare auto insurance site has already been operating in Britain for two years as a search engine for auto insurance prices.
People in the industry and Silicon Valley say it is only a matter of time before online agencies attack the armies of intermediaries that are the backbone of the trade, and Google could present formidable competition for other insurance sellers. As many as two-thirds of insurance customers say they would consider purchasing insurance products from organizations other than insurers, including 23 percent who would consider buying from online service providers such as Google and Amazon. Google Compare auto insurance site has already been operating in Britain for two years as a search engine for auto insurance prices.
You carry a phone with a gps unit in it and you are not sure?
Google Maps — on every Android phone, and on many iPhones as well. If you use it — and many people do — here is, what Google knows about where you've been.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Who cares about the stability of the insurer? They're insured themselves!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I would not want Google, a massive data mining company, to use its access to private and confidential information to sell anyone insurance. Just imagine "You searched 'hit and run' twice in the past year, and 'how to dispose of a dead body' once, your premium goes up by 1000%".
They have no data on my driving.
Google: Using location-based services on your iDevice, we have determined that you have run two red lights and are exceeding the speed limit.
Check that dongle your insurance company requires to to plug into your OBDII port. It might have a Gogle logo on it soon.
Have gnu, will travel.
They thought Google+ and Glass were good ideas too.
>> it is only a matter of time before online agencies attack the armies of intermediaries that are the backbone of the trade
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=online+in...
Car hacking A security researcher demonstrated that “car hacking” is reality through the exploitation of vulnerable Can Insurance Dongle. Million vehicles at risk.
So commissions are $50/$481 = about 10%. In other words, a fairly minor factor; you can usually save that by switching companies. Sure, it would be nice to chop 10% off your bill; but that is hardly a "major disruption". Even a caveman can chop 15% off your bill; who needs technology?
Most major carriers are moving towards online services already. If Google enters the market, their efforts can quickly be matched, leaving no net advantage for Google.
They'll know when you are sleeping,
they'll know when you're getting baked,
they'll know if you've been bad or good,
so when you see yellow, you better brake!
We would save a lot of money if a retirement account could be used as evidence of self-insurance in place of paying an insurance company.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I will point out that there is a huge difference between life and property insurance. Both are highly regulated.
Property insurance, which includes auto insurance, is about short term risks. They buy reinsurance to protect them against big, one off extraordinary risks. Earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. If they muck up on ordinary risks, such as basic underwriting, they can still go bankrupt and leave you one the hook.
Life insurance is a whole different ball of wax. Their biggest risk is superannuation risk – people living longer than expected. There are a few reinsurance schemas which have just been launched but they are untested. Very much the expectation. Here you do want financial stability.
This is the opposite of true. NOT buying insurance is taking a gamble that an average or below-average amount of bad stuff will happen to you. Buying insurance puts a (more or less) fixed price on the cost of bad stuff happening to you. You could save money by taking the gamble... or possibly not. And most people don't have the cash reserves to assume that amount of risk.
You can do that, if you're willing to lose everything when your momentary lapse of attention results in (or is claimed to result in) serious injury.
Aide form the whole "I don't want to lose everything I've saved", having at least collision insurance means that you don't have to fight with the other person's insurance company, and that has value. No matter who is at fault, you're not going to have to pay, so the other insurance company can't try to bully you or ignore your claim. Instead, your insurance company and theirs will typically take a few minutes to decide between professionals which one will pay the claims.
Even if you lose, it's still very hard to get paid for a claim. My neighbors had a tree fall on their house almost four years ago. Between water damage and a small fire, the house was totaled. They still haven't collected a penny, and are now having to hire a lawyer to file a suite before the statute of limitations. Personally, I was rear-ended by a car while on my scooter stopped at a red light in March 2011. USAA offered me ten cents on the dollar for the over $24,000 claim ($19k of that was the ER visit with three MRIs). I have to have a suite filed before March, or I lose the right to collect in this state. This state is ruled by Republicans so the laws are very slanted against the people. All corporations have to do is stall for a while, like USAA is doing, then the state lets them get away without paying the claim.
Of course we no longer have the right to drive a car without insurance, have a mortgage on a house without insurance, or even breath without health insurance. The Republicans are killing us with insurance premiums.
Google Maps — on every Android phone, and on many iPhones as well. If you use it — and many people do — here is, what Google knows about where you've been.
My phone lives in a foil pouch unless I need to make a call.
Let's see you track me when the phone cannot transmit or receive,
motherfuckers.
Getting insurance isn't the problem.
Getting companies to honor it, is.
Given how difficult it is to track down support from Google for support on some of their current offerings, I'm not sure insurance will be much of an improvement in customer experience.
Their cars aren't on the market yet. They have no data on my driving.
Hmm... this leads to an interesting thought. Google may be looking to insure their cars. Insurance is one of the most notable burdens that autonomous cars will face, with the question of who will pay in the case of an accident (the manufacturer or the owner's insurance company).
If Google underwrites both manufacturing and insurance, they might be able to easily skip that hurdle altogether and gets the cars on the market faster.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
The traditional life/health/auto insurance markets have been the target for the next collateralized security market. With some quiet legislative changes to insurable interest regulations, the likes of Goldman Sachs will soon be shorting your grandfather's life*. And once that market becomes established, the holders of the most valuable behavioral data will have an advantage in pricing the various tranches of risks properly. That would be Google.
*There has been legislation proposed at State and Federal levels (already passed?) allowing "poor old grandpa" to sell the future benefits of his life insurance, which he has been paying premiums on for years, for a lump sum of cash he can use while he's still alive. Once this new paper hits the securities market, is bundled and then sliced into risk pools, we have the makings of the next securities crisis. Watch for terms being used in the investment community like "catastrophic longevity" and think about the people who will be lobbying against the FDA's approval of the next miracle cancer cure.
Have gnu, will travel.
Please do health insurance Google! Blue Cross sucks! They need the rug pulled out from under them.
If that means I submit my health info to the Big Datas...so be it. So long as it helps to drive healthcare costs down.
Let's see you use it as a navigation device in such a state... Google, at least, gives you some value in exchange for your privacy — the navigation instructions you get from Google Maps will consider the actual current driving conditions (as much as Google knows them, of course). To get that information, you must tell Google, where you are — and where you are going...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Two weeks ago USAA asked me how much I expect to drive and I had to ballpark it. Since my commute is so short, it would be great to have Google provide a la cart pricing. USAA by comparison didn't even ask for odometer values. What a stupid way to determine my costs.
The problem with insurance is that it's a really complex product. That is the reason why there are human sales people because you want someone to explain it to you in person rather than study page after page of contract terms. The real revolution would require totally new approach to the product, i.e. Google becoming the actual insurance company and not just "insurance searcher"..
Sounds like a job for Javascript to me. Aren't they the folks that brought us Google Docs?
interesting thought. I hadnt looked at that yet but it makes perfect sense.
.....
auto manufacturers : you and your self driving cars, good luck insuring them
google : why dont i go ahead and just whip this out. oh look, BOOM insured.
auto manufacturers :
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
really only once a year? As it is now I can get a dump of all of my Google information as often as I want and download it s often as i want i have report on my profile emailed me once a month now and i can edit my information they keep on me. you can also delete you Google plus profile if you don't want it just go to.
https://myaccount.google.com/
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Kind of hard to ground a foil pouch if you're in your car on rubber wheels. Don't you want to receive calls?
Google maps uses WAZE to gather traffic info. WAZE is a great app if you use it, giving alternate routes around traffic as it discovers them.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
1)My prescription had not arrived. When I asked why, they said my insurance company told them my service was 'term" as in terminated. I have no idea why the customer service person felt it was important to tell me the status code for terminated was "term", but she did. But I wasn't terminated. Had to call up the insurance company and get them to tell the pharmacy division (same company, but they can't talk to each other) that I had insurances. Apparently there was some kind of major problem and lots of people had the same issue, but most were fixed before they realized the problem existed.
2) I owed them $7. Apparently my insurance back in August only paid them partially for a prescription. But when they sent me a bill, they just said I owed them $7, rather than telling me what it was for. As I am not an idiot, I don't send money to people unless they tell me why I owe them. They promised to send me an itemized bill.
Clearly, the insurance industry (and the pharmacy division) are run by extremely competent monkeys. Or by extremely incompetent people. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Who cares about dongles in cars, pretty soon, we will all be using UBER/Google Self driving cars. Who needs to buy insurance at that point?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It seems like they can only lose if there is a big spike in claims, such as a natural disaster or possibly war/terrorism. And in those events, when a big spike in claims occurs, doesn't the government insure the insurance company with disaster relief?
The smaller "pinprick" losses are from individual fraud claims. You'd have to sign an insurance contract that gives Google investigation rights (just as you do a conventional insurance company) and what Google could do with those rights during a claim investigation could be a major advantage. And since I am not committing fraud, I would benefit from buying a policy from a company that is not the choice of fraudsters.
Gently reply
In my younger, more vulnerable, far more gullible years, some representatives at Primerica asked me to sign up with them. They told me it would be a great Summer job in between college semesters and that I'd learn a lot.
Learn a lot I did.
They did pay for me to go to to state-required classes to become a licensed insurance salesperson. They were right, I did learn a lot about insurance there. The theory, how it works, lots of legal stuff and ethics, etc., etc. I was happy about that. It's good stuff to know.
I also learned about the company.
It didn't take long for a giant red warning sign to pop up in my head: "WARNING!!! PYRAMID SCHEME CULT. WARNING!!!"
That's exactly what it was. You see, the way Primerica worked was like this: You go out and sell an insurance policy and maybe a few other things. You get a commission. So does the person who got you to join. So does the person who got THAT person to join. And then the person above that person, all the way to the top.
I, being something like the 6th or 7th generation, would be feeding cash to the founder of that local chapter. Looking at the commission rates it soon became clear: If you're just working to sell insurance, you won't make much money. But if you can get 100 people under you then you don't have to sell insurance - all the dumb grunts would be doing the work for you. All you have to do is have weekly meetings and buy food and play music and do bizarre "team building" exercises and hire the occasional motivational speaker...
And then I thought, "So, people who are buying insurance and securities through this company are not only paying for my time and the service, but also all of this other crap... Including the person at the top who is just jerking off all the time at this point."
Well, it took all Summer to take all of the classes - passed with flying colors - and they even paid for me to take the state exam and get the license. I did both. By then it was time to go back to school and, though I was supposed to get back in touch with The Cult, I never did. I took my knowledge and ran for the hills.
Thanks for the education, Primerica, not only on how insurance works, but also what a truly abusive freak show your corporation is.
You were right. I did learn a lot.
Love sees no species.
Actually no. When I'm driving I care not for incoming phone calls or text messages. Heck, when I'm on the bike I couldn't answer even if I wanted to.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
It will not be as easy as breaking up the travel agents business using the net by buying the ITA software or something like that.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If people drive with their cellphones off (or in their tinfoil purse) then Google won't know where they drive
OTOH they should give them a lower premium because they are not driving with their cellphones on, so won't be distracted by texting or answering the phone.
With insurance, you don't really know for sure how good it is until the day you hope never comes happens, and you have to make a claim. Do they drag their feet or low-ball payment of the claim? Do they drop you? Do they hike up your rate?
My car insurance is kind of on the middle-low end of cost. I get ads for other insurance that could have cheaper premiums. But... With my current insurer, I have had a few experiences with having minor and not-so-minor claims, and they have treated me well, and not dropped me, and not jacked my rates up.
I don't think losing that kind of peace of mind is worth some marginal rate decrease.
Wow, just wow.....
Way to follow the heard Google....FYI it's also nice to know that you see no value in people, "they still use human agents"
Morons.
Can your retirement account cover that?
Most people's insurance plans can also not cover an 8 figure payout. People shop on premium cost alone.. Most have not much more then state minimums. When I was young and had no assets I only carried 40K of liability insurance. Connecticut state min is 20K.
At 20K even totaling out a mid-range compact car will max out that coverage. That's why we have "uninsured/under insured" coverage now. So when some 20 y/o driver with 25K of insurance totals my 60K car and puts me in the hospital my insurance picks up the difference.
If the 6 year old you speak of gets hit by the same driver he is just SOL. Past 25K he will have to sue the driver directly and hope he has some assets.
I do agree that putting your own retirement/home at risk just to save a few bucks a month is foolish. You could end up losing a lifetime of work for a driving mistake or something you have no control over (like your parked car catches fire in garage,burns down condo complex or hurts someone).
I have to return some videotapes...
At the end of the day, I think Google wants the information about people's driving destinations, habits, etc. People will offer this to Google for discount car insurance. Google will use it to sell more appropriate ads and make more money. They will get this data as well with their automated cars, but it will be awhile before everyone is driving one.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
While it is admirable that you are using the foil in a manner that gives it more functionality than it would if you were to use it as a hat, I worry that the underlying motives are the same either way.
My brother has an app on his smart phone that not only reports host fast you are moving, but if you're moving faster than some set speed, it puts the phone on silent. He longer gets bothered by his phone ringing or flashing him while driving.
Of course. They have all the data and statistics. And they have the comprehensive reach to give insurance to everyone, *for a much lower cost*. We'd be fools not to take it, because it's so cheap, and covers *everything*. Cars, houses, rentals, electronics, babies, jobs, farms... anything you have or need.
This will kill the Insurance Industry(TM) as we know it, and replace it will GoogleSure, in which you are automatically enrolled once you turn 16. Enrolled for life.
Inevitably, this imperious mission creep will eventually invade politics: first taking over all lobbying, then the politicians, then finally the entire government itself. We will become citizens of the GoogleStat. Politics, lawmaking, poverty, homelessness, immigration, budgets, subsidies, etc. all will be done in the most efficient manner possible; the entire economy will be 'tightened up' thanks to Google's efficient algorithms. And we won't even need to vote on anything anymore, because our Benevolent Father Google will already know what we choose, where we drive, how we live, and what we want. The Holy Algorithms will simply select the best laws for us, and the DriverlessGoogleCopBots will enforce them, just like Judge Dredd: Judge, Jury & Enforcement rolled into one... One Massive Algorithm to Rule Us All. And it will finally be perfect.
It sounds like the services described in the summary are still insurance agencies, just with lower (and less visible) costs and more technological awareness:
Some [of these] companies, like CoverHound and PolicyGenius, are online insurance agencies. Others, like Comparenow, send traffic to insurers and get a finder’s fee whenever someone buys a policy.
Now, that's fine as far as it goes; traditional insurance agents are an unnecessary, costly, and often unsavory gatekeeper if you're just looking to buy a vanilla personal insurance policy. If Google et al. can finally get people to cut out traditional agents, that's great - banging on about the evils of old-fashioned financial gatekeepers like stockbrokers and insurance agents is a pet hobby of mine. Still, I guess I'm missing what's so revolutionary here - I've been able to comparison shop directly from company websites like GEICO or Esurance for over a decade, with no intermediary at all.
There are two settings on Android that let you control this. Location reporting, and location history. They are named similar, so it might be confusing. Location history allows apps like Google Now etc to work, but ironically, does not store your data in this specific history thing (mine is blank, for example, despite using a Nexus 5 with location history on). Location reporting is a terrible battery drain, and designed to "ping" apps when you move around. This "ping" is also what goes to Google and updates this map.
Thus, to stay off this list but still get to use everything in Android, simply turn Location reporting off.
Seriously Google, don't mess with the insurance industry. Don't mess with any part of it. They will make you pay. Look at what happened in 2010; we thought we were going to finally get a single-payer option for Americans and instead the federal government handed out the largest corporate handout in the history of government to the health insurance industry.
If Google tries to disrupt the insurance industry we soon will have no Google.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Every time you send a text while driving they up your rates.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
$35,000 in the MINIMUM. You're still on the hook for ay amount above that the jury decides on.
Google has been wandering too far out from its experience. Space satellites are another head-scratcher project of theirs. The history of big oligopolies wandering off target is not very good. GM used to do that also, and ended up selling off most of their experiments at a loss. And while Xerox did great research outside of copiers (GUI's, Ethernet, etc.), they didn't know how to bring it to market, making bulky, expensive copier-like machines.
I would like to see Google be more aggressive going after the cable co's, however. That's only semi-wandering. The cable model is ripe for the picking: ticked off customers and poor choice. Google has the deep pockets and distribution infrastructure necessary for such a battle.
Table-ized A.I.
Could you link to this please, it seems like a rather useful app to have.
This is very scary. It would even increase their motivation to mine every possible bit of personalized data they can get on everybody to create personal profiles with health issues, preferences, tendencies, affiliations, etc.
This cool. Very cool. A solution that cuts out a largely unnecessary part of the process (agents) and it's expense is long overdue.
Still, there's an industry that I'd like to see "disrupted" even more - undertaking. Any business whose primary product is "...the last thing you'll ever be able to do for your late loved one..." deserves, more than any other, to be disrupted.
there are ads on the bill boards (no need to look at them when you on a screen in the dash board, provided by Google).
Sounds like a genius idea. Google incorporates a device in-car, that operates while you drive and is designed to catch your attention.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I'm still trying to figure out, from the synopis, how Google is gathering information on where and how I drive??
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You turn your cellphone off every time you get in the car?
Alternatively: You own a tinfoil purse?
The FIRST thing you do when in an auto accident, is get your lawyer involved from the get go.
If you don't have one, find a good one. You generally will get screwed if you try to handle insurance by yourself.
And really man, this is NOT a Republican thing by any stretch of the imagination. Insurance for the most part is now required in most all states and in lieu of it in some states, you must show that you have a bond or some sort of money saved to act as insurance.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Google Maps — on every Android phone, and on many iPhones as well. If you use it — and many people do — here is, what Google knows about where you've been.
So the average person spends most of their day walking around with a GPS recording their every movement, I have to imagine this is already having a pretty big effect on the criminal court system. Sure most people committing a premeditated crime would be smart enough to leave their phone at home (or give it to a fake alibi), but this seems to greatly simplify the standard TV question of "where were you between the times of X and Y last night?"
I stole this Sig
It's not just commissions. If you can automate away the process you can eliminate a shit ton of people, too, and that's where the costs are. I'll bet a lot of those commissions are in commercial insurance policies and those kinds of policies will still probably be sold by sales people who earn a commission.
Part of me is like, yay, insurance is expensive and it would be nice to pay less for it, and why shouldn't you in theory be able to just find policies via the web?
But part of me is like, ugh, every time some genius decides an industry is ripe for disruption what they end up meaning is they want to shitcan a bunch of employees and pocket the money that was otherwise filtering through the economy and keeping at least SOME people middle class.
It doesn't seem like anyone actually wants to change the business model of insurance -- ie, I pay money in case something bad were to happen and in theory the policy covers my liabilities. I don't know how you "disrupt" the basic structure of that business.
It's just the race to the bottom all over again.
Google doesn't know if I am the one doing the driving.
But I don't have an Android phone...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Google maps uses WAZE to gather traffic info. WAZE is a great app if you use it, giving alternate routes around traffic as it discovers them.
Google Maps uses both WAZE and Google Maps to gather traffic info. Mostly Google Maps, I suspect, since the userbase is much larger... though WAZErs do tend to have WAZE running all the time while most Google Maps users only use it when they're actually getting driving directions, so I may be wrong.
Oh, and Google Maps also gives you alternate routes around traffic as it discovers them. It's a bit less aggressive about it, I think, requiring a larger potential time saving before prompting a re-route.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Once, it directed me to turn left go a block on another street, and then turn right and then left again back onto the same road! No, there wasn't any traffic.
The straw that broke the camels back was when I went out on a day after very heavy rain. Waze directed me to drive on a road that was closed.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
This is the opposite of true. NOT buying insurance is taking a gamble that an average or below-average amount of bad stuff will happen to you. Buying insurance puts a (more or less) fixed price on the cost of bad stuff happening to you. You could save money by taking the gamble... or possibly not. And most people don't have the cash reserves to assume that amount of risk.
Agreed. My mom has good health insurance, and for 79 years she paid far more than she got. She had a fall shortly before her 80th birthday, and if she hadn't had the insurance, that one incident would have wiped her out, and then some.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
This is privacy advocates' worst nightmare. Okay, nazi-style mass murder of people with certain thoughts and opinions enabled by the scarlet letter that is all the data Google keeps on all of us is privacy advocates' worst nightmare. But this is how it starts.
When Google eliminates the middle men, do you think prices go down? Only for some, and then only for a very short while until the competition is out of business. And this process is accelerated by high rates for high risk individuals. High risk for payouts that is, which is not always the same as high risk for society. For example:
* Visit a lawyer's website recently. You're more likely to sue when we underpay your claim. Let the competition have you.
* Liked something by Ron Paul on Google+? Some Google analyst thinks he found a correlation between that and higher claims. Your rates go up.
Big Data makes insurance rates in the best case arbitrary (when they misidentify factors that supposedly relate to insurance risk) and in the worst case discriminatory and a method for punishing people financially for behavior we all supposed was constitutionally protected (when they accurately identify behavior, like advocating for tax reform that actually benefits the middle-class, that those who control the few big companies with the big data don't like). Hopefully the ACA will prevent this in the health insurance market by mandating a rate based only on geography, age and smoker status. But I'm sure they can easily marginalize people who oppose their ideas using just auto, homeowners and liability insurance.
They say we should vote with our dollars. But we're obviously far outnumbered in such a battle. And the very wealthy don't so much vote with their dollars as they wage outright war with them. Imagine your homeowners and auto insurance rates quadrupling because of the places you go, websites you visit and company you keep (online and otherwise). While less explicit, the end result isn't much different than the Nazi's Nuremberg Laws or or laws limiting property ownership to white males with family histories.
Thanks for nothing, first amendment. Soon we'll have to exercise #2 instead.
Can they send a drone with a customer-service or sales rep?
Because, for medical insurance today, you can reach nobody for either of these by phone, nor have an email or voice-mail replied-to either. You would think they would be at least somewhat interested in at least sales calls, but apparently they are so awash in profit that it just doesn't matter to them.
Companies used to have walk-in offices where you could camp-out if necessary.
I finally found a locally-based non-profit health plan where I was able to reach somebody - after a 1/2 hour wait on the phone. Now, a sales person will call me back in the next 24 hours - or so they say. This, at least, is an improvement.
And... (wait for it)... I was able to find out from the non-sales customer-service rep that they do, in fact, have a walk-in office where you can do business. You can pay your bill, pick up literature, or camp-out to talk to a representative. Apparently, they also make appointments. That will probably come in handy on February 14.
FWIW, the one I'm referring to is Sharp in San Diego. I know nothing about them other than the above, other than previous favorable experience with the Sharp-Rees-Steely Urgent care facility down the street, and reports from a friend who has one of their plans though his employer.
Now, will Google send an over-sized drone? Will Amazon set-up an appointment so that I can meet the sales rep that they ship to the closest 7-11 with Amazon Lockers? And will either of them pick up the phone - for anything?
I'm sure either can handle the online part of the experience.
(I love Amazon lockers!)
You _could_ be sued for a car accident and they _could_ come after your personal assets, but I do believe that's rather rare if you have sufficient insurance. Where "sufficient" partly means "enough that your insurance company will have their lawyer spend time defending the claim".
... at least in most states.
I grew up in Michigan. We had GREAT health care at little cost, thanks to the auto industry, and the non-profit Blue Cross organization that they used for insurance. Even if you did not work in the auto industry, everybody in Detroit had Blue Cross "cadillac coverage" at reasonable cost.
But they sold-out (metaphorically) and licensed their name to greedy, profit-making enterprises. In California, we have Anthem Blue Cross, a profit-making corporation, and about the worst anti-consumer company in the world. When I moved here, somehow I though Blue Cross was actually Blue Cross. What a mistake!
The first few years, it was much like the Cadillac care I had experienced in Detroit. Their PPO network was wide, they paid, they didn't quibble. It has gotten steadily worse. You throw money at them and get basically nothing, unless somebody at Anthem Blue Cross screws-up in their job of discouraging you from accessing services.
I've paid my bill, through my bank's bill-pay service, every month, on time. And I've gotten a cancellation notice, without fail, every single month. In fact, I even got one dated several days before the due date, before they changed the computer programming to print a fake date on the statements. This wastes customer's money mailing out thick cancellation notices every single month. It probably results is older patients with dementia double-paying bills. I am sure that they know that.
Every year, they violate various California insurance laws, the state Insurance Commission slaps them on the wrist over it, and they agree not to do that again, and provide an extended open enrollment period. (At least before Obamacare). And then they do it all again the next year.
Just don't.
I'm exploring a locally-based, non-profit health plan (Sharp - San Diego). Alas, these are scare as hen's teeth.
Who is your insurer? I've never had a problem using my auto insurance without a lawyer.
They generally will take care of the auto itself, but for anything medical, best to have an atty.
That way you can get your bills covered and some settlement too.
Never again will I be the nice guy that wants to be easy to work with, they don't expect that and will run roughshod over you, sorry to say, but that's the truth these days.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
In my state, they have to post a surety bond or have a certain amount of liquid assets or something along those lines in order to offer their services.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Google has so much data on everybody in the world that they could probably do a far better job at predicting insurance risk by means of proxy variables than anybody else.
Which is why, if you have high personal valuation, say you make 200K / year, have a trust fund or other assets, you often want much higher limits on your policies. If you own two houses and a boat and a bunch of securities, it makes sense for the aggrieved party to go after you. If you flip burgers, not so much. My insurance policy states that they will defend me for losses above the policy limits, but it doesn't say how aggressively they will go about it. And, if they lose, so do I.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You state should have a state agency that deals with insurance. You need to lodge a complaint with them.
I'm guessing you are in Washington because of your health insurance provider's name. Of course some companies will have providers from the corporate areas but it will transfer to local when making claims. If this is the case, http://www.insurance.wa.gov/ will give you more information and where and how to complain.
In almost all states, almost all insurance is highly regulated and both the companies and often the agents need to be registered and/or licensed by the state in order to operate there. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you meant Premera and not Primera. It looks like they had 149 complaints in 2013.
My phone takes it one step further. There is a trial running in my city for S Drive. The Samsung program not only locks your phone into a driving mode where it limits your use of apps, but it also rewards you for safe use of the phone while driving (i.e. not touching the phone and using only basic voice commands).
For every km you drive you get points.
For every unsafe action (touching your phone) you lose points.
Points are redeemable for real products.
It's not a bad idea, and the phone magically handles everything when I put it into the dock.
The disruption is not lower rates for drivers it's bigger profits for investors. 10% of 481 Billion is a nice chunk of change. Throw in some data analytics to get rid of high risk drivers (or charge them 3x what they pay today) and now you're really talkin'
:(.
Big Data and Expert Systems suck for everybody except the investor class
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If you're talking about America Healthcare is cheaper in every other 1st world country and they have just as many unhealthy people (dear god, have you seen British food?). Heathcare is expensive in America because Regan gutted the education system 30 years ago and we've got a doctor shortage (esp primary care docs) and because we let a large, completely unnecessary industry skim money off the top.
And before anyone tries to blame malpractice insurance it accounts for about 10% of the cost of health care. I forget how pointed this out but: Would you sign a waiver on any mistakes the doctor might commit for a 10% discount on surgery?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
is the insurance industry spent half a billion dollars in 1 year on anti-single payer campaigns. They were fighting for their lives, and they won.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
WAZE is croud sourced, and you didn't report the road closed? You're the reason it didn't report it closed.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I regularly use my phone for navigation, it used to speed up my home commute considerably, but now I drive from a better location.
Google appears to have no location data for me. I turn off all the extra location services and only enable the GPS. I have been thinking of pursuing a class action lawsuit over this.
Every time I enable the GPS I am prompted to allow google location services. I always say no, but if I try to check "don't ask again", it defaults to yes. They are claiming to allow opt-in, but forcing you to opt-out every time you use it and only allowing you to permanently opt-in, you can't permanently opt-out.
Cheap storage VM.
Yeah, a phone in a foil pouch will up it's transmit strength while it searches for a signal. Better to pop the battery and then maybe do the foil pouch too (if you have psychological problems that are helped by that).
Cheap storage VM.
Unfortunately, you can't turn this off permanently. I get prompted for this every time I enable the GPS and I have to disallow it.
There is a convenient, "don't ask me again" button under the "allow" and "disallow" buttons, but if you check that it highlights "allow". You can't permanently "disallow". Is this specific to Samsung and motorola? I've had this issue with both phones on Verizon and ATT.
I've been considering if it's lawsuit worthy, anyone know who I could talk to about that? Think the EFF would be interested in this faux opt-in/opt-out setting.
Cheap storage VM.
you might have gotten some bites until the 3k / week claim . That must be like a 200 million dollar policy.
Cheap storage VM.
Yeah, my wife was in a minor accident and USAA covered the car with no problem, but they would not pay to replace car seats. In hindsight, I should have lawyered up.
Cheap storage VM.
If they could figure out to let me use my phone in the car to play music, hands free, when I have a mandatory IT enforced PIN code on it, I'll pay money.
Necron69
Sorry I misread...
..sniff...YOu didn't have to get nasty and call me a Republican...
..tears....
Cheap storage VM.
The app is supposed to collect real-time data from drivers going around. If everyone using Waze sits in stop-and-go traffic for an hour before finally exiting I-87 where it is closed, they ought to be able to figure out that I-87 isn't a good route to use right now. Remember that Waze's selling point is that it uses information about traffic to find the fastest route.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Some types of insurance such as home insurance still have a need for agents because when disaster strikes it's very helpful to have someone there to get you immediate aid and help you through the long process of rebuilding.
Other insurance such as auto insurance don't need local agents. While there are companies that do employ agents, there are plenty of low-cost auto insurance companies that don't and Google would be nothing new.
Some insurance such as life insurance takes sales people to use high pressure tactics. Most people would never buy life insurance on their own because nobody wants to think about dying. Google might make some headway here because all the data they collect would help them better figure out the risks for a particular person. But the life insurance industry is no slouch when it comes to data collection and analysis. And a lot of profits in life insurance come from investing the premiums, something Google would have no advantage in.