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Versicherungen stützen sich auf Risikominderung. Doch es besteht die Gefahr, dass durch Big Data der Ausgleich nicht mehr gegeben ist.

Comment from the English-speaking world

Is it reasonable for life insurance companies to demand that their customers try to get fit? ... John Hancock, one of the oldest life insurance companies in the US, announced [recently] that it would in future only write policies that offer rewards for customers who use various forms of fitness trackers or join gyms. Similar offers are available in Britain, where 1.1 million people have signed up to such schemes. ... But if the process is carried to extremes, it could undermine one of the fundamental principles of any insurance market.

Insurance works because we are ignorant of our individual fates . ... [A]ny of us might turn out to be a bad risk [which] makes it sensible for everyone to insure against that remote chance. The pooling of individual risks ... underlies the whole system. But there is a subtle mismatch of aims between insurers and their customers. The customers want to avoid the consequences of misfortune; the insurers want customers who avoid misfortune. The two aims are reconciled because both sides are operating behind a veil of ignorance.

Insurers have an interest in knowing as much as possible about their customers. Customers have an interest in insurers underestimating their real risk . ... Each individual customer also has an interest in the insurers pricing all the others accurately, with the help of as much information as possible. And both sides will benefit if ways are found to reduce the risk of the misfortune insured against . ... The balance between knowledge and ignorance of risk has traditionally been struck at the level of statistical knowledge about large groups . ...

But statistically significant groups are getting smaller in the age of big data. In the US, one data company uses 442 nonmedical attributes to predict medical costs and so which clients are profitable to insure. In the light of the health disparities between the rich and poor areas of Britain, private insurers could do the same here with no more information than a postcode. This is why the NHS has to cover everyone, if it is to work as it should. The risks must be shared between healthy and unhealthy, rich and poor . ...

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