February 2010 Twitter and FaceBook could increase your home insurance

Any of who have ever filled out a life insurance application will know the standard questions; “do you drink?“, do you smoke?”, how about “do you use social networking sites?” a simple answer of yes here could see a premium on your home insurance.

The website PleaseRobMe.com has demonstrated quite how easy it is to see who is home and who is not from their status/updates on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, making it easy for would be burglars to pick who to target.

Confused.com has jumped on the publicity band wagon, suggesting insurance premiums would rise. While insurance companies are far from technically savvy enough to start amalgamating peoples Facebook status, they are switched one enough to simply ask “are you on Facebook?”. A simple study on the chances of getting burgled for Facebook vs non-Facebook users is all it would take to compel insurers to take the step, and simply being on a ‘social networker’ will add a nice increase to next years’ renewal.

While this may seem a little unfair on the more social of us, maybe it is fair that the ones of us without the impulse to advertise when we’re attending some important event pay a little more than those of us don’t!