The whole 12 page pull-out in the Times makes for utterly depressing reading when considering the future. The insurance business is now going to measure the risk on everything you do including what is in your weekly shopping basket. A fews bottles of Chardonnay, a pack of oven chips and BBQ sauce will push up premiums for cars, health, property and anything else you can think of. In one quote, an industry insider says “what technology will allow is to prevent more and more of the risks that matter to us personally.” This means us doing nothing at all as far as insurers are concerned. The article convincingly boasts of a future where “by 2035 most people will have a wearable device designed to monitor personal health.” What they really mean is, you will have a wearable device or you not be insured.
In another quote from a commercial feature in the same pullout regarding telematics in cars: “these services with online rewards, are designed ultimately to condition the behaviour of users to encourage them to drive more safely.” Imagine that extended out to every facet of your life when you consider what is insurable.
The reason we don’t smoke as much these days is the tax the government places upon that activity. The same with water meters, the decisions we make buying cars because of the cost of government tax on fuel. Again, imagine all the decisions of your private life being influenced by cost.
Are you and your family all healthy? Is a parent or sibling suffering a disease that will cause you insurable risk to increase. Will a blood test determine all manner of premiums? Will social media accounts determine insurability? Is having a good time going to be limited by data driven insurance? And will we hide these behaviours? Will we falsify our social media activities or ask others to bring alcohol to our homes like contraband?
Britain is already recognised by the United Nations as an endemic surveillance state. Insurance will be at the forefront of this awful view of the future that determines how we should lead our lives.
Our future world is largely directed by the current crop of useless so-called world leaders who are clearly pushing us into a place of withering obedience with the unauthorised use of 360 degree state surveillance. New technology is somehow seen as the road to liberty, contentment and prosperity, but the truth is, our future is being shaped by a system that will destroy our civil liberties, crush our human rights and it will eventually ensnare and trap us all, much as they are attempting in China and Japan with social credit mechanisms and pre-crime technology which is a truly frightening prospect.
TABU; Towards A Better Understanding 