Technology has changed our lives, and many of us can’t remember a time when we weren’t carrying a smartphone in our hands. However, we can expect to see even more incredible uses of technology in the future.
Our household devices are likely to be able to connect to the internet in the future. We’re already seeing this with smart doorbells, which allow us to answer the door remotely from our smartphones, and be notified if there’s anyone hanging around the house.
This will be taken a step further in the future. We can expect our fridge to send us alerts when we need more milk, and we’ll be able to increase the heating or turn on the air conditioning before we get home each day.
Big data is another way that we’ll be benefiting from technology. Right now, there’s so much data floating around, and businesses that harness this information will be able to gain accurate insights into their consumers. Insurance companies could easily use data to determine how risky you are to insure, which would allow everyone to pay the correct home insurance premiums based on their behaviours.
Another reason why these devices will be so helpful? Greater control. If you suddenly realise you’ve left the stove on, you can simply turn it on remotely from an app on your smartphone. This reduces risk, and allows us to keep our homes and families safe by using these connected devices in conjunction with our tablets or smartphones.
We can also expect to see more people with “smart homes” in the future. This would mean that your house (or the devices within your house) would alert you as soon as there is a problem when you’re away. A burst pipe would be easily addressed, so you could get it fixed before the water damage becomes catastrophic.
Eventually, this technology would become standard across most homes, and would eventually become cost-effective. In the short-term, however, the technology would likely be costly, and while it would be helping to reduce risk, it would also need to be insured as well.
Many people feel that insurance is unfair in some ways. Even if you’ve never made a claim, and you’re low-risk, you generally end up paying for people who have riskier behaviours. By using big data and taking this type of technology into account, you would be less risky to insure in the eyes of insurance companies. That means your premiums would likely be lower. For people who are more irresponsible, they would be encouraged to be more careful, or would be penalised for riskier behaviour.
This type of technology is also likely to reduce claims. We can expect to see fewer kitchen fires, smaller claims from water damage, and fewer break ins, resulting in fewer payouts. That should mean lower premiums for everyone.
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