Social Media Impact on Life Insurance Premiums (Essay Sample)

The task attached herein was on ethics. I was instructed to write an essay creatively on how insurance companies can use the social media posts of individuals to set and establish premium rates. This also narrows down to the laws of the land restricting insurance companies from the use of online data to set premiums and derive insurance products as per the lifestyles portrayed by the various individuals on social media.
It also states whether it is justifiable by law under the ethical standards to use an individual private data and on the other hand also defends the insurance companies since it uses publicly available data. In my opinion it is just business as usual for both parties and as long as the there is the law i.E. The 4th amendment, where there is a provision for civil liberty that allows companies to defend themselves against unreasonable government intrusion. With this they can be able to create tailor made insurance products as per the set patters on social posts and behavior.
The same law, the 4th amendment, also states that individuals deserve some reasonable level of privacy but the privacy is limited to a certain degree. This excludes the right to privacy for posts made on social media since once posted, they are no longer private and are considered publicly available information.
With the aforesaid, the insurance companies can go ahead and use the publicly available information to analyse its market segment and niche so as to create or come up with products that are affordable to a certain demographic unit. The law also stamps authority by saying it is only ethical for them to use the information but without and discrimination whatsoever, be it on race, gender, age, creed, color, sexual orientation and national origin. The above is also backed by the new york department of financial services.