How Insurance Companies Find What You Never Want Them to Know
With the digital transfer ofinformation from things like
your credit cards andpurchase histories, highly
powerful insuranceconglomerates have beenable to gather informationwith more ease than ever
before. What follows is a listof the ways these corporate
giants are able to accessyour personal information,
which then often plays asignificant role in thecomposure of your life
insurance plan.
Prescription Drug Histories
Take, for example, ExamOne and Milliman IntelliScript,both of which are able to piece together prescription
claims data from pharmacies all over the world. Afterunearthing the information, these companies then sell
the information to the insurance companies. According toMilliman, they are able to deliver a patient report withinliteral seconds, giving the insurance company in question
access to the drug name, the dosage, the fill date, thepharmacy, and even the physician who prescribed said
narcotic.
What’s interesting is that this method of retrieving whatinsurance companies perceive to be vital information hasonly emerged as a trend in the past decade, consideringthat over ten years ago the technological capability just
wasn’t there.
Driving History
Yet another vastly personal aspectto many individuals’ lives, a drivingrecord can hold tremendous swayover the ultimate price of yourinsurance policy. Specifically,
driving while intoxicated or otherreckless driving convictions canmake it very hard to attain areasonable policy. Yet, it is notjust DUI’s and reckless driving
convictions that play a role here.Even simple moving violations, likesay, an abundance of speedingtickets, can negatively influence
the process.
Your Permission
Perhaps the most intriguing, and ironic, aspect of this entire data collection process is thefact that when you sign your life insurance application, you are actually granting life
insurance companies legal access to conduct the above informational gatheringtechniques. So, even though the information is vastly personal, you are, in the end,
responsible for the discovery of whatever information you may or may not want to keepunder wraps. The process abides by prominent widespread legislation like the privacy
laws of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, aka HIPAA. Just as well,the Fair Credit Reporting Act also specifically distinguishes said potentially questionable
practices as completely legal.
While life insurance is a vitalcomponent for attaining and
retaining proper peace of mind,contemporary consumers shouldunderstand what they are getting
themselves into. If there’ssomething you’d prefer others toremain ignorant of, perhaps it’s
best to a give a second thought tosigning that life insurance
application. After all, once yougive your permission, the life
insurance companies in questionhave your consent to act as theywill in order to collect whatever
information they deem necessary.