Care, control and trust in data-driven insurance

In this paper, we analyse 1. how care and control are at stake in emerging data-driven insurance technologies and 2. how ‘digital trust’ becomes a key for insurers in solving frictions between careful control and controlling care elements. Data-driven technologies are supposed to disrupt insurance by enabling new ways to calculate, price and manage risks. The implementation of these technologies is controversial, with fears of increased surveillance, control and exclusion from coverage. However, they are not yet established as a common practice. Besides technological development, the realization of data-driven insurance depends on relational aspects, such as trust.

Trust has for long been a key concern in the insurance business. Lately, insurers have paid heightened attention to it in the digital context. Algorithmic technologies based on increased monitoring of digital traces can help insurers control and trust their customers. However, they might not be useful and caring enough to engender trust among policyholders. In this paper, we show the frictions between insurers’ will to collect new data and their need to ensure trust among customers. The emergence of data-driven insurance technologies will potentially reconfigure the trust relations, with insurers employing the notion of ‘digital trust’ to solve the frictions. Hence, the developing of Insurtech serves as a lens to analyse how algorithmic technologies affect values in established institutions like insurance. The paper is based on empirical fieldwork conducted among insurance providers in Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Furthermore, we analyse reinsurance companies’ reports on digitalization and ‘digital trust’.