ABSTRACT
Inspired by the promise of datafication to turn all aspects of life into actionable digital information, insurance companies have started to experiment with the use of sensor-generated and self-tracked data. Entering into this world of ‘messy’ and ‘lively’ data is a huge shift for insurers who are used to working with insulated statistical information. It is an equally enormous leap of faith for policyholders for whom the trade-offs of these new kinds of insurer–insuree relationships might not be clear. In this chapter, we analyse how existing and potential users of Finnish behaviour-based policies see insurers’ attempts to establish these relationships. Our study highlights the ambivalence that is prevalent in people's relationships with behaviour-based insurance policies and the practices those policies support. Although our informants were interested in the products and deemed them beneficial, they remained anxious and uncertain about the abilities and effects of the data practices included in the policies. These uncertainties, we argue, are fundamental to understanding the contextual nature of datafication processes and the need to build trust in the emerging data economy.
