The Cambridge Analytica case has brought to the attention of Internet users, not just experts, the tricky issue of managing the user data collected online, used until now by many companies in a more than carefree way to take advantage. Europe, which has always been much more security-aware about privacy than other contexts, such as the USA, has been further strengthened through the GDPR the path of regulation and awareness regarding personal data processing.
Data that every citizen must now learn to manage carefully, since in some ways are a kind of currency exchange. If so far we have naively thought that having a Google email or account on a social network like Facebook was really free, then now we have to reconsider, actually we are paying with our data. Young generations are increasingly aware of it.
According to a global survey by Mulesoft (Salesforce) reported by Bloomberg, most young people between 18 and 34 would be ready to give insurance companies free access to their digital data if it meant lower insurance premiums and customized service.
62% of this age group said they would even be happy for insurers to use data generated by third parties such as Facebook, fitness devices, or smart-home devices, so long as it resulted in a real benefit for them, namely a lower cost of the policy, an improvement in performance. In older generations, this percentage drops to 44%.
45% of people between 35 and 54 are quite willing to give insurers wide access to their digital identity, while only 27% of people over 55 would do so.
Insurers are investing millions of euros to improve their digital offering in a context of increasing competition by insurtech startups. However, according to the survey, target is still far from being reached: 58% of the surveyed said that their insurance company’s digital systems are still not working very well, and there are many difficulties in filling out, for example, an online form. In fact, 56% said they were ready to switch operators if the digital service did not improve.
“Insurers are already struggling to deliver a digital experience to their customers,” said Jerome Bugnet, of MuleSoft. “Even before including all these new data sources in the equation.”
Big data means big opportunity, but how many companies have figured it out?
In fact, the new research “Big Data & Regulation” of the Digital Insurance Hub, sponsored by Cetif in partnership with CRIF and RGI, shows that in Italy only 35% of companies are investing in the implementation of projects designed for Big Data & Analytics. Most of them, however, do not have a real master plan, an industrial plan based on a data-driven approach, only 11% of the companies surveyed claim to have adopted this strategy.
The result of this vision of the Big Data, not at all ‘holistic’, is the fact that, according to Cetif research, 58% of the companies offer policies combined with IoT devices. Compared to the 35% who claim to invest in Big Data & Analytics projects, there is a gap that shows that some companies, although they have a data source that allows them to collect a lot of information on the habits of their policyholders, such as the IoT, are not yet structured to seize all the opportunities arising from its information assets.
All rights reserved
