Hastings Direct demand for location data via their app

Ditzy_Mitzy

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82083159#Comment_82083159

And taking an internal flight would create a speed reading that was plane stupid!

TooManyPoints

I’ve only just looked at this resurrected thread.

This is the most ridiculous “requirement” I’ve ever heard of. Recording the whereabouts of a mobile phone cannot be of much use to anybody in these circumstances. The person collecting the data only knows just that – where the phone is. If I’s connected to a motor insurance policy they don’t know if the policyholder is actually in possession of the phone; they don’t know whether or not he is travelling in the insured vehicle, let alone whether he is driving it.

Unless they make a further condition that the phone must be in policyholder’s possession and left switched on 24/7 (and even that would not overcome most of the drawbacks) they will learn nothing whatsoever that could be of any use to them. All they can do is draw assumptions.

MeteredOut

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82094987#Comment_82094987

Insurance underwriting is all about assumptions based on the vast volume of data their actuaries have availalbe to them. This is simply another set of data that will feed into their calculations.

Aretnap

Unless they make a further condition that the phone must be in policyholder’s possession and left switched on 24/7 (and even that would not overcome most of the drawbacks) they will learn nothing whatsoever that could be of any use to them. 

Given that Hatings will be spending quite a lot of time, money and effort collecting, storing and analyzing all this data, it's safe to assume that (1) they've thought about those things and (2) they've conclude that it will be useful to them anyway.

Precisely how it will be useful depends on exactly how they plan to use it - it's not obvious to me whether they want the data to find people who are lying about their addresses, people who they might not want to offer renewal to, or just are gathering information on driving habits in general. But certainly as someone who is not entirely unfamiliar with dealing with large datasets as part of my job, I can say with confidence that not every individual point in a dataset has to be 100% accurate for the dataset as a whole to be useful.

Bigwheels1111

If it was me, I would buy a cheap Android phone, get a mozillian or Lebara SIM. Leave it in the car.

Job done.

TooManyPoints

If it was me, I would buy a cheap Android phone, get a mozillian or Lebara SIM. Leave it in the car.

I would do the same, but leave the phone at home.

Mildly_Miffed

"Given that Hatings will be spending quite a lot of time, money and effort collecting, storing and analyzing all this data, it's safe to assume that (1) they've thought about those things and (2) they've conclude that it will be useful to them anyway"

…or…

(3) they know the information's tosh, they do zero parsing of it, but they're bargaining on the average punter not realising that and being scared into driving sensibly while they have their phone with them - which is, of course, all the time…

Aretnap

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82097014#Comment_82097014

Of course though, the information isn't tosh and it's quite easy to parse if they want to.

Most normal, well adjusted people aren't going to buy a spare phone and spare SIM just to leave at home hosting the app - if you don't want to hand over your data it will be much easier and cheaper just to buy a fractionally more expensive insurance policy which doesn't ask for location sharing in its app. And those that do put the app on a burner phone will be very easy to detect and exclude, as the data will show them never driving the car that they've gone to such trouble and expense to insure.

Similarly 90% of people do 90% of their car journeys in a car that they're driving themselves, or at least is driven by their spouse/partner. From the insurer's point of view it doesn't really matter whether it's the policyholder or their spouse who is driving, since 90% of the time they'll be named on each other's policies anyway. if the insurer is inclined not to offer renewal, or only offer renewal at elevated prices, to people whose data shows them in a car being driven by a maniac, most of the time they will indeed be losing a customer who drives like a maniac.

Perhaps there are a handful of people who drive like nuns but regularly accept lifts from unrelated friends who drive like maniacs, or who are incredibly unlucky in their choice of taxi drivers. The insurer might lose a few of them at renewal time, but probably thinks that this is a price worth paying to lose the ones who do drive like maniacs. And so on and so forth.

On the other hand it's also perfectly possible that Hastings are collecting the data for reasons which have nothing at all to do with insurance per se and are more akin to the reason that the app that comes with your air fryer also collects location data - ie it's all data that can be sold on lucratively to advertisers.

paul_c123

Does the app come with a "driving/not driving" button?

Mildly_Miffed

If all you have is speeds that the phone may or may not have been subject to, in or out of the car, then - yes - the resulting numbers (I won't dignify them as "data") is complete and utter tosh.