While social media sites continue to grow, there is a sector of the service industry that is not too happy about it. A possible hike in home insurance premiums is the unexpected but likely fallout of this.
U.K. based insurance comparison site, Confused.com has warned users about this eventuality.
Another site, PleaseRobMe.com has been actively trying to create awareness among people about how using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook etc. makes them vulnerable to burglars.
The simple fact is that when users post updates, on these sites regarding their current location, daily schedule etc. they are obviously informing people that they are not at home. This information can easily be abused by miscreants.
In other words, people are making their homes more vulnerable to robbers. Insurance firms surely won’t ignore this.
Darren Black, head of home insurance at Confused.com says, “I wouldn’t be surprised that as social media grows in popularity and more location based applications come to fore, insurance providers consider these in their pricing of an individual’s risk and we could see hikes of up to 10% for people who use these sites.”
It does seem quite surprising that the advocates of user privacy, have not yet raised objections to the location based apps on social media sites, even though they had been quick to object to services like Google Maps and Street View etc. as they had then rightly pointed out that burglars are getting more and more sophisticated, where planning and execution of their attacks is concerned.
In view of these facts, it seems reasonable that insurance firms have started taking note of these factors, while providing insurance and assessing claims. After all home security is more than just putting up sophisticated locks on the door.
