Stolen androids? Is there a policy for that?
So, there’s this thing called predictive analytics. You probably haven’t heard about it much because it’s something major corporations, banks, insurance companies and governments use to predict your future behavior. Like, how many fender-benders you’re going to have in the next ten years.
In my current short story series, Laura Kraft, Android Hunter, the decision-making process followed by the Supers (and the androids connected to them) is called Heuritronics, and predictive analytics and machine learning are basic components of Heuritronics.
In the present day, an auto insurance company uses predictive analytics for underwriting, a way of figuring out how much they’re going to pay out for a specific item, such as stolen cars. Of course, the company has a huge database of millions of vehicles and the unfortunate things that happen to them.
Now, it doesn’t take an insurance company long to figure out which cars are stolen most often, who owns these cars, where they live and where the cars are stolen. And, it only takes a few button pushes to figure how much extra charges are slapped onto policies sold to these car owners.
If you watch a lot of “drifting” movies, like the Fast and Furious franchise, you could be forgiven for thinking that exotic sports cars are stolen left and right. They’re not, mostly because anti-theft technology is so robust.
But if you thought Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Hyundai Sonata, you’d be much closer to the mark. And, you’d be correct in thinking, “Well, duh, they’re stolen so frequently because they sell a bizillion of them every year.”
As a car buyer, you’re probably not going to consider purchasing a vehicle that’s going to have high insurance premiums mostly because it’s a target of car thieves. Car builders know this and take measures to prevent car thefts with interventions like “smart keys.” In a round-about way, predictive analytics made this happen.
However, what if you want to insure an entirely new product, like a robot that helps the elderly in their daily tasks? For an insurance company, the liability is totally unknown. Determining how many robots are going to be stolen is absurd.
Fortunately, predictive analytics rides to the rescue. Based on billions of bits of data collected over the years and computer modeling of similar experiences in the past (how many Tesla Model Xs were stolen, for instance), the insurance company can come up with a reasonable premium with the probability of theft built-in.
Now, here comes my totally hypothetical, shot-in-the-dark guesstimate of android insurance costs (without the benefit of any analysis whatsoever).
You can expect to currently pay around $3500 a year to insure a Model X which could possibly be in the range of prices for early androids. Figuring that companion androids will be available to consumers in 20 years and using an average rate of inflation, insurance costs on an android would run about $5500 a year in 2038.
And now you know how much you’ll (maybe) pay to insure your android. I bet State Farm has actuaries working up those rates right this minute.
For those of you who want to insure getting the latest sci-fi mystery, Episode Three of the Laura Kraft, Android Hunter short story series, entitled The Android Who Played with Fire, should be ready in a couple weeks. I think you’ll like it.
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