Forget about the face that launched a thousand ships. Your face in the next selfie you snap could launch a thousand life insurance quotes!
Read more: How to shop for life insurance
Insurers may one day use your selfie to set premiums
The insurance industry is on a quest to appeal to a new generation of potential customers who are used to everything being on-demand at the touch of a button.
That’s why one startup company is making facial analytics software that uses artificial intelligence to “read” a photo of your face and set insurance rates in about 10 minutes. No medical exam necessary!
Lapetus is the maker of Chronos software, which Nerdwallet reports is currently being tested by several unnamed insurers.
The software is said to be able to read body mass index, your physiological age (not your chronological age) and to assess if you’re aging faster or slower than your chronological age — all from a selfie.
Using that info, along with other data points you give the insurer, the hope is that Chronos will help insurance agents set life insurance premiums in just minutes instead of days.
Of course, it’s still a work in progress. Chronos sees through makeup, but still can be fooled by plastic surgery.
But if those bugs can be tweaked out of the system, next up for Lapetus would be to work with the states for regulatory approval. That’s because insurance is regulated at the state level, not the federal level.
Imagine it though…10 minutes and no formal medical exam! Right now, you have to wait about a month while you go through the medical underwriting process before getting a quote.
Clark talks about the life insurance industry on The Clark Howard Show Podcast
“Face” the facts about your finances
This isn’t the first use of technology in conjunction with facial recognition within the insurance or financial world.
Back in 2015, Bank of America had an app that was designed to scare you into saving by aging your picture so you could see how you’d look at retirement.
The Face Retirement app is no longer available, but it used your smartphone or webcam to snap a picture of you that was then digitally aged to 65.
The idea was by seeing yourself down the road, you would be inspired to start saving money today!
Read more: Here’s how much you need to save each month to have $1 million by retirement
