Submitting To Spying Could Save You Money

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September 9, 2011

I’m not a huge reality show fan but I am a huge Big Brother fan.  It fascinates me when grown people choose to submit to have all their actions filmed and then play out in front of America. Personally, I would never want to be in that situation- being watched, monitored and analyzed.  But, even if you cannot be on a reality show, you can still choose to have a type of big brother experience thanks to State Farm. 

State Farm, my insurance carrier, is starting a program called In-Drive which is part of their Drive Safe and Save program.  Customers can agree to let State Farm spy on their acceleration, braking habits, speed and other logisitcs in hopes that it will reduce their insurance costs.  The kicker for me is that you actually have to pay a fee to sign up along with a monthly monitoring fee.  All in the hopes that eventually you will see an approximate 10% reduction in your coverage costs over time.

Maybe this idea will expand into human resources.  After all, we could start hooking people up, 24/7, to monitor them for health benefits.  We could also place cameras and microphones on them to monitor how they are interacting with colleagues at work.  There could be no end and we could give up all privacy, but at what psychological cost?

What do you think?  Would you volunteer to have your behaviors monitored just to save a buck?

 

 

2 Comments

  • Trish,

    I love that you love Big Brother. I find reality TV to be a great study of how people behave under pressure. Fun stuff.

    That being said, I almost can’t believe that you suggested monitoring of employees, even tongue in cheek, because what we need is less monitoring not more. My prediction is that this program will backfire on State Farm. It sounds like a colossal waste of money to me. But, I could be wrong. Those who sign up for monitoring are likely to be those who already have the lowest rates. At least, that’s my guess.

    But, I could be wrong. I often am.

  • Pay a fee to possibley get a lower rate…. Hmmm. Wouldn’t the paying the fee negate the lower rate?

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A former HR executive and HCM product leader with over 20 years of experience.

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