Findings on Business Ethics Discussed by Investigators at University of Toronto (Run for Your Life: the Ethics of Behavioral Tracking In Insurance)

2021 JUL 14 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at NewsRx Policy and Law Daily -- Current study results on Business - Business Ethics have been published. According to news reporting originating in Toronto, Canada, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, “In recent years, insurance companies have begun tracking their customers’ behaviors and price premiums accordingly. Based on the Market-Failures Approach as well as the Justice-Failures Approach, I provide an ethical analysis of the use of tracking technologies in the insurance industry.”

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from the University of Toronto, “I focus on the use of telematics in car insurance and on the use of fitness tracking in life insurance. The use of tracking has some important benefits to policyholders and insurers alike: it reduces moral hazard and fraud, increases actuarial fairness, and incentivizes safe behavior. These benefits, however, are outweighed by significant moral objections. First, the use of tracking technologies significantly undermines the fairness of the interaction between insurance companies and policyholders. Specifically, the use of tracking eliminates information asymmetries, but in such a way that favors insurers exclusively. Furthermore, tracked behaviors and the ability to choose to behave safely are highly correlated with other variables such as income.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Therefore, tracking-based insurance relies on and exacerbates existing inequalities and injustices, which undermines the benefits that tracking is supposed to introduce.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Run for Your Life: the Ethics of Behavioral Tracking In Insurance. Journal of Business Ethics, 2021. Journal of Business Ethics can be contacted at: Springer, Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 Gz Dordrecht, Netherlands. (Springer - www.springer.com; Journal of Business Ethics - http://www.springerlink.com/content/0167-4544/)

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Etye Steinberg, University of Toronto, Dept. of Philosophy, 170 St George St, 4TH Floor, Toronto, On M5R 2M8, Canada.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04863-8. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)