How Insurance Companies Find What YouNever 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.