2023考研英語閱讀非常非常私人的理財問題
Verypersonal finance
非常非常私人的理財問題
Marketing information offers insurers another wayto analyse risk;
營銷信息為保險公司提供了一種分析風險的新方式;
A Swiss life-settlements firm called Rigi CapitalPartners recently considered buying thelife-insurance policy of an elderly womanapparently suffering from dementia. RCP wouldtake over payment of the policy premiums and receive the full death benefit when shepassed away. Her medical records revealed that she had forgotten even her son s birthday.But Robin Willi, RCP s owner, searched Facebook to find out more about her. Her profilesuggested she had a vibrant social life, not dementia. Reckoning that she was muchhealthier than she wanted to appear, Mr Willi did not offer to buy her policy.
一家名為 Rigi Capital Partners的瑞士壽險公司最近在討論是否買下一位年長女性的壽險保單，其人很明顯正受到癡呆的困擾。當她去世后，RCP將拿到保險條款的支付，并且將全部的死亡賠償金收入囊中。醫療記錄顯示她甚至已不記得自己兒子的生日了。但是RCP的控股人Robin Willi卻造訪了她的Facebook以對他了解更多。從她的個人主頁上看出，該女士的社交生活非常豐富多彩，完全不像癡呆癥患者。Willi先生認為她的健康狀況要比外界認為的更好，于是決定不去購買她的保單。
Medical records can be deceptive, incomplete or expensive to analyse. Mr Willi thinks thatpublicly available data will be increasingly useful in helping insurers distinguish theaerobics enthusiasts from the couch potatoes. His firm is small enough to be able to searchfor data manually. For bigger insurers, software is now being developed by technology firmssuch as Allfinanz and TCP LifeSystems to sift through all the marketing data that might helpthem identify tomorrow s cancer patients or accident victims.
對醫療記錄進行分析時，不僅價格可能很高，分析結果也可能是誤導性的或者不完全的。但Willi先生認為，保險公司要從沙發電視迷中選出有氧運動愛好者時，公眾可接觸到的信息將會發揮日益重要的作用。他的公司規模較小，完全可以手動搜索數據。對于更大型的公司來說，Allfinanz與TCP LifeSystems等科技公司正在開發全新的軟件，幫助他們檢索全部的營銷信息從而找到明天的癌癥病人或者事故受害人。
Such information can be bought from marketing firms that aggregate data about individualsfrom records of things like prescription-drug and other retail sales, product warranties,consumer surveys, magazine subscriptions and, in some cases, credit-card spending. At leasttwo big American life insurers already waive medical exams for some prospective customerspartly because marketing data suggest that they have healthy lifestyles, says Tim Hill ofMilliman, a consultancy that advises insurers on data-mining software systems.
一些營銷公司會收集處方類藥物或其他零售信息，產品保修，消費者調查，雜志訂閱，有時甚至包括信用卡支付等的個人數據。營銷信息可從這些公司購得。Milliman是一家在數據發掘軟件領域向保險公司提供建議的咨詢公司，該公司員工Tim Hill指出，至少兩家美國大型壽保公司已經放棄了對一些潛在消費者的藥物測試，一部分原因是營銷數據顯示出他們有健康的生活方式。
The software picks up clues that are unavailable in medical records. Recklessness in onepart of someone s life is a pretty good signal of risk appetite in others, for example. Aprospective policyholder with numerous speeding tickets is more likely than a safer driver toend up with a sports injury. The software also detects obscure correlations. People whofrequent ATMs so they can make cash payments tend to live longer than those who preferwriting cheques or paying with credit cards, it turns out. People with long commutes tend todie younger. Why this should be is not clear: some speculate that ATM users tend to bemore spontaneous types, who like to have cash in their pocket and whose lifestyle may bemore active; others hypothesise that sedentary commutes mean less time to do somethinghealthy in the evening.
軟件會處理那些醫藥記錄不能提供的線索。若評估個人健康問題時對某一部分粗心大意，那么在其他方面可能就要承擔極大的風險。與謹慎開車的投保人相比，一位有大量超速罰單的潛在投保人很可能死于運動創傷。這款軟件同樣可以檢測潛在的聯系。人們發現經常去ATM取錢并用現金支付的人往往會比寫支票或使用信用卡支付的人活的更長，事實也是如此。那些通勤時間較長的人也傾向于英年早逝。為什么會是這樣人們還不清楚，不過一些人推測理由是因為ATM用戶一般都為主動型的用戶，他們口袋中有現金，他們在生活中更主動;其他人認為較頻繁的往來路程意味著他能做健康活動的時間更少。
The technology is not perfect. For some predictions it cannot beat a blood test. But manualunderwriting with medical tests can cost hundreds of dollars and, according to one estimate,drags on for an average of 42 days in America and Europe. That gives potential customersample time to talk to a competitor or walk away. Automated underwriting can cost a tenth asmuch and be done once a human reviews the software s recommendation.
這項技術也并不完美。有時，預測結果的準確性甚至不如血液測試。但是手工利用醫學測驗來核對保單可耗費數百美元，而據估計在美國和歐洲這個過程更可拖沓長達42日之久。這就給潛在的消費者足夠的時間去與競爭者談業務或者干脆不辦了。自動測試較之只需十分之一的成本，并且工作人員審閱軟件報告后，整個過程就完成了。
Insurers interest in data mining will only grow, says Kevin Pledge, the boss of InsightDecision Solutions, an underwriting-technology consultancy based near Toronto. He hasinvestors interested in a project to develop software to comb Facebook and Twitter forpromising sales leads: a woman proud of her pregnancy might want to buy life insurance,for example. Insurance firms will also analyse grocery purchases for clues aboutpolicyholders, he predicts. But that raises some sticky questions about privacy. Mr Pledgehimself has begun to forgo his supermarket loyalty-card discount on junk food and pay forhis burgers in cash. Promising as data mining is, much will depend on how regulators, andconsumers, react.
在多倫多附近的保險科技咨詢公司Insight Decision Solutions的經理 Kevin Pledge說數據挖掘技術只會導致保險公司利潤的增長。他接觸過有興趣投資那些能整合Facebook與twitter信息，提高銷售額的軟件開發項目的投資人：比如一名對自己的懷孕非常驕傲的女性可能樂于購買壽險。他預測到將來保險公司也課從雜貨購買的記錄中尋求、分析潛在投保人的線索。但是一些關于隱私的棘手問題的問題也付出了水面。Pledge先生本人已經棄用了超市的垃圾食品打折忠誠卡、開始用現金購買垃圾食品了。數據挖掘的未來到底有多光明，在很大程度上取決于監管者，消費者將如何反應了。
Verypersonal finance
非常非常私人的理財問題
Marketing information offers insurers another wayto analyse risk;
營銷信息為保險公司提供了一種分析風險的新方式;
A Swiss life-settlements firm called Rigi CapitalPartners recently considered buying thelife-insurance policy of an elderly womanapparently suffering from dementia. RCP wouldtake over payment of the policy premiums and receive the full death benefit when shepassed away. Her medical records revealed that she had forgotten even her son s birthday.But Robin Willi, RCP s owner, searched Facebook to find out more about her. Her profilesuggested she had a vibrant social life, not dementia. Reckoning that she was muchhealthier than she wanted to appear, Mr Willi did not offer to buy her policy.
一家名為 Rigi Capital Partners的瑞士壽險公司最近在討論是否買下一位年長女性的壽險保單，其人很明顯正受到癡呆的困擾。當她去世后，RCP將拿到保險條款的支付，并且將全部的死亡賠償金收入囊中。醫療記錄顯示她甚至已不記得自己兒子的生日了。但是RCP的控股人Robin Willi卻造訪了她的Facebook以對他了解更多。從她的個人主頁上看出，該女士的社交生活非常豐富多彩，完全不像癡呆癥患者。Willi先生認為她的健康狀況要比外界認為的更好，于是決定不去購買她的保單。
Medical records can be deceptive, incomplete or expensive to analyse. Mr Willi thinks thatpublicly available data will be increasingly useful in helping insurers distinguish theaerobics enthusiasts from the couch potatoes. His firm is small enough to be able to searchfor data manually. For bigger insurers, software is now being developed by technology firmssuch as Allfinanz and TCP LifeSystems to sift through all the marketing data that might helpthem identify tomorrow s cancer patients or accident victims.
對醫療記錄進行分析時，不僅價格可能很高，分析結果也可能是誤導性的或者不完全的。但Willi先生認為，保險公司要從沙發電視迷中選出有氧運動愛好者時，公眾可接觸到的信息將會發揮日益重要的作用。他的公司規模較小，完全可以手動搜索數據。對于更大型的公司來說，Allfinanz與TCP LifeSystems等科技公司正在開發全新的軟件，幫助他們檢索全部的營銷信息從而找到明天的癌癥病人或者事故受害人。
Such information can be bought from marketing firms that aggregate data about individualsfrom records of things like prescription-drug and other retail sales, product warranties,consumer surveys, magazine subscriptions and, in some cases, credit-card spending. At leasttwo big American life insurers already waive medical exams for some prospective customerspartly because marketing data suggest that they have healthy lifestyles, says Tim Hill ofMilliman, a consultancy that advises insurers on data-mining software systems.
一些營銷公司會收集處方類藥物或其他零售信息，產品保修，消費者調查，雜志訂閱，有時甚至包括信用卡支付等的個人數據。營銷信息可從這些公司購得。Milliman是一家在數據發掘軟件領域向保險公司提供建議的咨詢公司，該公司員工Tim Hill指出，至少兩家美國大型壽保公司已經放棄了對一些潛在消費者的藥物測試，一部分原因是營銷數據顯示出他們有健康的生活方式。
The software picks up clues that are unavailable in medical records. Recklessness in onepart of someone s life is a pretty good signal of risk appetite in others, for example. Aprospective policyholder with numerous speeding tickets is more likely than a safer driver toend up with a sports injury. The software also detects obscure correlations. People whofrequent ATMs so they can make cash payments tend to live longer than those who preferwriting cheques or paying with credit cards, it turns out. People with long commutes tend todie younger. Why this should be is not clear: some speculate that ATM users tend to bemore spontaneous types, who like to have cash in their pocket and whose lifestyle may bemore active; others hypothesise that sedentary commutes mean less time to do somethinghealthy in the evening.
軟件會處理那些醫藥記錄不能提供的線索。若評估個人健康問題時對某一部分粗心大意，那么在其他方面可能就要承擔極大的風險。與謹慎開車的投保人相比，一位有大量超速罰單的潛在投保人很可能死于運動創傷。這款軟件同樣可以檢測潛在的聯系。人們發現經常去ATM取錢并用現金支付的人往往會比寫支票或使用信用卡支付的人活的更長，事實也是如此。那些通勤時間較長的人也傾向于英年早逝。為什么會是這樣人們還不清楚，不過一些人推測理由是因為ATM用戶一般都為主動型的用戶，他們口袋中有現金，他們在生活中更主動;其他人認為較頻繁的往來路程意味著他能做健康活動的時間更少。
The technology is not perfect. For some predictions it cannot beat a blood test. But manualunderwriting with medical tests can cost hundreds of dollars and, according to one estimate,drags on for an average of 42 days in America and Europe. That gives potential customersample time to talk to a competitor or walk away. Automated underwriting can cost a tenth asmuch and be done once a human reviews the software s recommendation.
這項技術也并不完美。有時，預測結果的準確性甚至不如血液測試。但是手工利用醫學測驗來核對保單可耗費數百美元，而據估計在美國和歐洲這個過程更可拖沓長達42日之久。這就給潛在的消費者足夠的時間去與競爭者談業務或者干脆不辦了。自動測試較之只需十分之一的成本，并且工作人員審閱軟件報告后，整個過程就完成了。
Insurers interest in data mining will only grow, says Kevin Pledge, the boss of InsightDecision Solutions, an underwriting-technology consultancy based near Toronto. He hasinvestors interested in a project to develop software to comb Facebook and Twitter forpromising sales leads: a woman proud of her pregnancy might want to buy life insurance,for example. Insurance firms will also analyse grocery purchases for clues aboutpolicyholders, he predicts. But that raises some sticky questions about privacy. Mr Pledgehimself has begun to forgo his supermarket loyalty-card discount on junk food and pay forhis burgers in cash. Promising as data mining is, much will depend on how regulators, andconsumers, react.
在多倫多附近的保險科技咨詢公司Insight Decision Solutions的經理 Kevin Pledge說數據挖掘技術只會導致保險公司利潤的增長。他接觸過有興趣投資那些能整合Facebook與twitter信息，提高銷售額的軟件開發項目的投資人：比如一名對自己的懷孕非常驕傲的女性可能樂于購買壽險。他預測到將來保險公司也課從雜貨購買的記錄中尋求、分析潛在投保人的線索。但是一些關于隱私的棘手問題的問題也付出了水面。Pledge先生本人已經棄用了超市的垃圾食品打折忠誠卡、開始用現金購買垃圾食品了。數據挖掘的未來到底有多光明，在很大程度上取決于監管者，消費者將如何反應了。
