Understanding Big Data
The concept of information is power puts data into the center of progress, data today is the real deal. How exactly to put together the concept of big data? Well, the name is very suggestive and builds a clear picture as to what it could be.
Big data can be understood as a big, complex & voluminous database that contains a variety of information regarding everything and anything that generates some kind of information. The data sources are ever-growing and the velocity of data from these data points is magnanimous, adding tons of data every second to this existing large database called the Big Data.
So what’s the use of collecting this data from every source available? In the digital age, we are consuming a huge amount of data on a daily basis, courtesy of the internet. Whatever we search on google is available because somebody tried to store it and upload it for the use of masses.
Now while using the internet we don’t just consume the existing data but create new data sets which could be in the form of anything ranging from our names, contacts to our web history. The three V’s important to the formation of the big data are Velocity, Volume, and Variety.
Why fuss over the big data? Well because the big corporations are ready to kill for it! Big data provides much-needed insights into customer preferences and their data history which can help them inefficient targeting of customers and better their sales and marketing revenue.
Big data scientists gather specific information and the technical know-how while preparing to enter the industry of data science, they use big data for providing valuable insights to the firm. The big data analytics training has helped boost the career prospects of people from the IT space. One of the reliable programs is the big data Hadoop training course which is curated by Hadoop industry experts.
Implications in the Insurance industry
If you had the power to predict something with high probability on the basis of the past track records wouldn’t it be fruitful? That’s how big data help every industry in general that needs a past track record to implement changes in the future functioning. Broadly, insurance ranges from general to automobile & healthcare which is further broken down into sub-segments depending upon the industry.
The most obvious use of big data in insurance is customer insights based on the information gathered from the customer since this is a generic one applicable to every industry it’s easily understood. Let’s take an example of the automobile insurance so the information relevant to pricing the insurance policy premiums and add-ons depends on various factors like safety level in the buyer’s vicinity to their historical driving record. The insurance firm can accordingly charge different buyers with different rates as the degree of safety is very subjective and also the driving habits of people vary.
Where do insurance companies fail? If you go in a little deeper into the subject you’ll find that the level of fraud related to an insurance claim is paramount resulting in loss to insurance providers. Now the case of moral hazards is very prevalent and people often see insurance as a total safety net so they don’t even bother to maintain a minimum safety standard.
Big data steps in to identify a probable false claim based on the history of the party claiming an insurance amount, the level of fraud has come down drastically owing to big data in insurance.
What all can go wrong for any particular scenario of insurance? These scenarios are also developed with the boon of big data. This helps in better premium pricing and reduce the chances of a surprising claim for unaccounted factors.
Conclusion
The term big data is very suggestive of the work it performs and what it holds in its reals. Containing the massive amount of databases from each and every data point, big data paves the way for future based on the historical records of things. Among the numerous applications of the big data, the Insurance industry seems to be gaining a whole lot from the insights that this mammoth entails. From reducing the cases of insurance fraud to pricing the premiums of various insurance policies given the subjectivity of the user, the big data is shaping the insurance industry for a better future and better profitability.
