The Rise Of Real-Time, Context-Based Insurance

23 March 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

A small insurance startup, Root, has launched a car insurance specifically designed for Tesla vehicle owners that reduces the price of the policy the longer the vehicle runs in autonomous mode, on the basis that this mode is much safer than driving manually. Thus, drivers who spend a lot of time on the highway or in conditions where they can activate the autonomous mode will pay less insurance.

The idea is based on the fact that a vehicle is increasingly a connected platform, a smartphone on wheels from which we can obtain a constant flow of information. To sign up for a Root policy, which typically offers much lower prices than its competitors, you must download an app that allows the company to access GPS, accelerometers and gyroscopes data on your smartphone, making it possible for the company to evaluate your driving.

After about two to three weeks driving with the app, enough for the average driver to forget about the app and go back to his or her typical driving habits, the algorithm has created a user profile that includes how much time the vehicle is in use, frequent destinations, whether drivers change lane excessively, their driving speeds, to what extent they respect traffic rules, or if they use their smartphone while driving, among many other things. After that period, the company claims it stops monitoring. Drivers receive a report on their driving, with some 30% of applicants rejected, that allows the insurer to reduce its prices by accepting only drivers they consider to be low risk and thereby increasing the average quality of their customer pool, which in the end means fewer payouts.

Root is operating at a very small scale: so far, only in Ohio, where the likelihood of finding many Tesla owners is probably low. But the idea of a context-based insurance policy that adjusts its price depending on the circumstances or our driving is undoubtedly original, and could be applied to many other situations from an insurance perspective. The company has not yet contacted Tesla, but believes that even without using vehicle data, its machine learning algorithms can deduce at what times the car is driving in Autopilot. Root wants to reach an agreement with Tesla to use data generated by the vehicle itself, which would allow even greater precision. Although Tesla has not yet commented, it has previously shown an interest in informing insurers about the added safety of its Autopilot. Likewise, the company has been open to the possibility of sharing the data generated by its vehicles with government agencies or with other companies and nothing seems to indicate that it would oppose the owners of its vehicles if they freely decide to share their driving data in exchange for a cheaper insurance policy.

By Enrique Dans

See full story at www.forbes.com

The coming revolution in insurance

21 March 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

IN THE stormy and ever-changing world of global finance, insurance has remained a relatively placid backwater. With the notable exception of AIG, an American insurer bailed out by the taxpayer in 2008, the industry rode out the financial crisis largely unscathed. Now, however, insurers face unprecedented competitive pressure owing to technological change. This pressure is demanding not just adaptation, but transformation.

The essential product of insurance—protection, usually in the form of money, when things go wrong—has few obvious substitutes. Insurers have built huge customer bases as a result. Investment revenue has provided a reliable boost to profits. This easy life led to a complacent refusal to modernise. The industry is still astonishingly reliant on human labour. Underwriters look at data but plenty still rely on human judgment to evaluate risks and set premiums. Claims are often reviewed manually.

The march of automation and technology is an opportunity for new entrants. Although starting a new soup-to-nuts insurer from scratch is rare, many companies are taking aim at parts of the insurance process. Two Sigma, a large American “quant” hedge fund, for example, is betting its number-crunching algorithms can gauge risks and set prices for insurance better and faster than any human could. Other upstarts have developed alternative sales channels. Simplesurance, a German firm, for example, has integrated product-warranty insurance into e-commerce sites.

Insurers are responding to technological disruption in a variety of ways. Two Sigma contributes its analytical prowess to a joint venture with Hamilton, a Bermudian insurer, and AIG, which actually issues the policies (currently only for small-business insurance in America). Allianz, a German insurer, simply bought into Simplesurance; many insurers have internal venture-capital arms for this purpose. A third approach is to try to foster internal innovation, as Aviva, a British insurer, has done by building a “digital garage” in Hoxton, a trendy part of London.

The biggest threat that incumbents face is to their bottom line. Life insurers, reliant on investment returns to meet guaranteed payouts, have been stung by a prolonged period of low interest rates. The tough environment has accelerated a shift in life insurance towards products that pass more of the risk to investors. Standard Life, a British firm, made the transition earlier than most, for example, and has long been primarily an asset manager.

See Full Story at www.economist.com

4 Tips on Buying a Car in Singapore

16 March 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

Singaporeans love cars: although cars in Singapore can can cost five to six times more than they do in other countries, there has been a steady demand for new cars in the country. Land Transport Authority records show that more than 87,000 new cars were registered in 2016, up 52% from 57,000 new registrations in 2015. The strange thing is that this has been happening despite the fact that Singapore has one of the best public transportation systems in the world: it’s not like you need a car to get around the city.

If you have decided to buy a car or are seriously considering doing so, here are some tips that could help you in the process. If you think you will be needing help financing your purchase, you can also read about the best car loans that you can get in Singapore and how much they cost on average.

1. Decide Whether Your Budget Can Afford A Car

As cars are so expensive, a majority of buyers take a bank loan to finance their purchase. However, you still have to arrange a substantial sum as a down payment. If you decide to buy a Toyota Corolla Altis, one of the most popular models in Singapore, not only do you need to arrange about S$31,000 just for the down payment, you also need to pay a monthly instalment for your five-year car loan in excess of S$1,000.

But why should a car cost so much? A Toyota Corolla Altis costs S$102,988 in Singapore, while its open market value (OMV), which indicates the purchase price and associated costs for delivery of the car to Singapore, is only S$18,690. The remaining amount consists of taxes and duties. Some of the additional taxes and duties come from a few major pieces:

Additional registration fee – this is calculated at a tiered rate, which ranges from 100% of the OMV to 180%.
Certificate of entitlement – anyone who wishes to register a new vehicle in Singapore must first buy a certificate of entitlement (COE) from the Land Transport Authority. This represents a right to use the vehicle for a period of 10 years. The COE for a Toyota Corolla Altis? A hefty S$50,889.
Car buyers also have to bear GST, excise duty, and the dealer’s profit margin.

See full story at www.traveller.com.au

Beware of travel insurance provided with credit cards

14 March 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

Beware the travel insurance provided with credit cards. I was forced to lodge a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman against a bank’s insurer for unconscionable and deliberate processing delays after four months.

After lodging with the FSO, I received a notice from the insurer advising that it intended to pay. Never forget the FSO is there when your insurers are not.

TIP OF THE WEEK

My husband and I recently travelled through China by train with our trip booked through a Beijing-based company called china-diy-travel.com and could not recommend it highly enough.

It supplies translations of departing stations for your taxi, what you require, and even further translations to assist if luggage is lost, if you miss the train or need to book a later train.

This is a great help as there is little English around stations or on trains. At its suggestion we bought two children’s tickets for our sleeper (four-berth with a door) which meant that we had room for our bags and space to move. It also meant that the door remain closed all night with no one else coming and going.

We were advised by china-diy not to use the dedicated windows at stations which “are automatic distributions for Chinese citizens who can get tickets using their national ID cards”. The e-ticket provided by china-diy should be presented at any ticket window (which always has a queue) with the passports of those travelling (children travel on parents’ passports so we had no problem with our phantom children).

Tickets for the train are then issued, you find the correct waiting room and wait for the train to arrive. You are then swept along with the dozens of Chinese also on that train. Everyone takes their noodle cups and uses the hot water available at the end of the carriage to make dinner. We took ours from Sydney but there are plenty available in the many small supermarkets around the cities.

See full story at www.traveller.com.au

Tips for reviewing insurance policies at start of 2017

9 March 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

OKLAHOMA – As New Year’s resolutions are often made with the intentions of improving the present, don’t forget to make a resolution to protect your future by revisiting and updating your insurance policies.

Studies show that as many as 50 percent of insurance policyholders say they don’t have a clear understanding of their home insurance coverage.

Officials with the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance encourage Oklahomans to review and update their insurance policies with their agents for peace of mind in the New Year.

“The New Year is a great time to take a step back and reevaluate insurance policies,” said Gary Buckner, executive vice president and general manager of Oklahoma Farm Bureau and Affiliated Companies. “A lot more can change in a year than people may realize, which can affect their insurance needs.

“Our agents and staff are happy to walk each client through their policies in order to ensure they have the best possible coverage to meet their needs.”

Oklahoma Farm Bureau Insurance is offering the following tips to ensure insurance policies are the best fit for policyholders:

Take a mental walk through the last year. Think through what happened in 2016. Major life changes such as getting married, having children or buying a new car or home are all things that may require an update in coverage.

If you are a business owner and have made any large purchases like new equipment or properties, or if your risk profile has changed due to property improvements or liability risks, it’s time to update your policy.

By : Staff Reports

See full story at www.miamiok.com

Three Tips for Renewing Your Car Insurance Policy

7 March 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

As it is now officially 2017, many drivers are going to have to renew their auto insurance policies sometime in the near future, and if you are like most drivers, you may not do much about it. Many simply press renew, without changing much of anything on the policy. People think there isn’t much they can do to reduce their car insurance bill when in actuality there are numerous things that can save hundreds every year. Here are the three main ones:

Don’t Always Assume Your Company Has the Best Price: Comparison Shop

Before we even discuss your policy, you should see if your company is even the best car insurance for you in the first place. In any town in America, there are no less than six companies, but likely several more, that want your business, and they may differ by thousands of dollars. The competitiveness of the auto insurance market makes it so no one company is the best priced in every town and city. GEICO is a top three cheapest insurer in nearly 60% of all cities we surveyed, and while that is more than most, there are still thousands of cities where it can be a more expensive option. The only way to know if you live in one of those towns in the 40% is by comparison shopping.

Even if you are content with what your current company is offering you, there is a good chance another company can offer you an even better rate. ItThe internet makes it very easy to do it. You don’t even have to go through the quote filing process if you are short on time. You can read articles like this one, where we discuss where people can find the best cheap car insurance in Los Angeles.

By : ValuePenguin

See full story at www.nasdaq.com

10 tips to surviving an insurance audit

2 March 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

Have a plan and process in place to help you through

Many medical plans (Medicare, Tricare, etc.) as well as managed vision plans (VSP Vison Care, EyeMed Vision Care, Davis Vision, etc.) have an ongoing process to audit payments to providers.

The audits can be random or can be targeted to your practice due to billing patterns that fall outside the norm. Insurance companies use big data analytics to compare what and how you bill your services.

Previously from Dr. Spear: 5 steps to creating a budget

If you are an outlier, chances are you will be the target of an audit.

To protect you and your practice, it is important to have a plan and process in place in the case of an audit.

Our practices have been audited numerous times and having a plan in place helped us get through it.

Here are ten tips to help you survive an insurance audit at your practice.

1.Know the rules

Have you read your vision plan contract? I ask that question on a regular basis when I am lecturing on the topic of billing and coding.

For many offices, managed vision plans make up 70, 80, or even 90 percent of the patient base and revenue.

What is the percentage in your office?

How can you run a practice with the majority of your revenue coming from a source for which you have not read the contract?

2. Don’t assume a records request is routine

Some record requests and audits are routine. Others are not routine at all. This is why it is important to provide the insurer with the correct information within a timely manner.

There might be some hints in the insurer’s record request.

For example, if every record requested by an insurer involves a patient with diabetes and a specific code—that’s a strong indication that the request is a targeted search on that code.

In contrast, if the request covers a seemingly random number and type of patient—it’s probably a routine audit.

By Carl H. Spear

See full story at optometrytimes.modernmedicine.com

5 Crop Insurance Tips for Winter

28 February 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

Stellar yields, dismal commodity prices or both ensured many producers did not get payments for 2016 crops. Even if the outlook is the same for 2017, farmers still need to work closely with their crop-insurance agents to try to secure at or above-breakeven profitability with any available tools.

“It’s very, very important that they take that opportunity once a year to review that policy,” says Sherri Tomhave, crop insurance product and training specialist with Farm Credit Illinois. This annual review is pertinent to the accuracy of the policy regarding all entity and personal information, as well as the actual coverage attached. Examples to consider are whether the people with substantial business interests in the policy have changed.

Make your decisions before the federal government’s spring average price is locked in this February and as global fundamentals tilt away from U.S. producers, particularly on the soybean side of the balance sheet.

“Soybeans have considerable downside price risk under normal Northern and Southern Hemisphere yields,” says Jamie Wasemiller, an analyst and crop insurance agent at the Gulke Group in Chicago.

Here are five tips farmers should consider this winter.

Buy the harvest price option.
Priced at 2¢ to 3¢ per bushel, the harvest price option is the closest thing to a cheap call option that producers can buy, Wasemiller says. If harvest prices go above the spring average price, producers can realize higher revenues on their 2017 crops. The Harvest Price Option is there to help farmers in scenarios that mainly involve low production.

By: Nate Birt

See full story at www.agweb.com

5 tips for saving on auto insurance

23 February 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

Anyone who has been affected by a car accident knows the value of auto insurance. But it’s a tricky thing to shop for because you’re trying to reconcile a cost spectrum with the fact that you hope to never have to use it. How do you balance monthly premiums with the worst-case scenario of totaling your car in an accident?

A perspicacious consumer can find a few ways to whittle away at the sometimes surprising costs of auto insurance. Discounts in auto insurance prices are not merely tied to unchangeable things like a driver’s age or circumstances such as marital status or the city one lives in. There are concrete ways to take the edge off your insurance costs. Take the following helpful tips into consideration when seeking out the best deal in an auto insurance policy.

1: Choose Your Vehicle Wisely

Getting a killer deal on a fancy new car is certainly exciting, but it’s best to look at potential insurance premiums before signing a check. One way to get a head start is to compare different car models online and then ask an insurer for quotes on each. Rates can vary significantly, even among cars of the same make. Since replacement costs are factored into premiums, it’s essential to consider not only how expensive the car would be to replace, but also the parts and labor costs involved in a repair.

By KSL Cars

See full story at www.ksl.com

Tips dealing with insurance denying or handling a claim

21 February 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

You never know when you might need to call on your insurance carrier to cover a claim. Life is unpredictable and anyone can have a momentary lapse in judgment. Below are a couple of bizarre but actual explanations I came across that were given by people making insurance claims:

“Coming home, I drove into the wrong house, and collided with a tree I haven’t got.”

“I thought the side window was down, but it was up, as I found when I put my head through it.”

Most pay for insurance and expect it to be there when needed. Some insurance companies provide exceptional service and are always there when you need them. Unfortunately, others make the claim process more difficult. They get in touch with you immediately if you miss a payment but are slow to respond to your claim. Some estimates suggest that thousands of insurance claims are unjustly denied each year.

Sometimes a simple error causes a denial of your claim and your persistence can get the error corrected quickly. Having a local, trusted insurance broker to go to bat for you can be helpful. However, sometimes the denial is more than just a simple error and getting the coverage you paid for takes more effort. It can be helpful to think of your insurance policy as a contract. You agreed to pay the insurance premiums and the insurance company agreed to provide coverage if called upon. Unless the language of the insurance policy excludes a specific type of claim, the insurance company will generally be obligated to provide coverage. That’s why you should read your policy carefully.

At the same time, insurance policies are generally long, difficult to understand, and filled with “legalese.” Still, an insurance company has an obligation to ensure the policy language is reasonably clear. If the policy is ambiguous, coverage can’t be arbitrarily denied when you have reasonably interpreted the policy as providing coverage. The lack of clarity in the policy’s language will be construed in your favor and the insurance company must cover your claim as long as your interpretation of the policy is reasonable.

By: Bo Binghamn

See full story at www.thespectrum.com

Insurance Agency Singapore | Commercial Insurance and Personal Insurance