<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Road traffic injuries are a leading cause of death worldwide. Proper estimation of car accident risk is critical for the appropriate allocation of resources in healthcare, insurance, civil engineering and other industries. We show how images of houses are predictive of car accidents. We analyse 20,000 addresses of insurance company clients, collect a corresponding house image using Google Street View and annotate house features such as age, type and condition. We find that this information substantially improves car accident risk prediction compared to the state-of-the-art risk model of the insurance company and could be used for price discrimination. From this perspective, the public availability of house images raises legal and social concerns, as they can be a proxy of ethnicity, religion and other sensitive data.</p></abstract>

Road traffic injuries are a leading cause of death worldwide. Proper estimation of car accident risk is critical for the appropriate allocation of resources in healthcare, insurance, civil engineering and other industries. We show how images of houses are predictive of car accidents. We analyse 20,000 addresses of insurance company clients, collect a corresponding house image using Google Street View and annotate house features such as age, type and condition. We find that this information substantially improves car accident risk prediction compared to the state-of-the-art risk model of the insurance company and could be used for price discrimination. From this perspective, the public availability of house images raises legal and social concerns, as they can be a proxy of ethnicity, religion and other sensitive data.

Google Street View image predicts car accident risk

Central European Economic Journal

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"Google Street View image predicts car accident risk"}

Road traffic injuries are a leading cause of death worldwide. Proper estimation of car accident risk is critical for the appropriate allocation of resources in...

Google Street View image predicts car accident risk

Published Online: Apr 18, 2020

Page range: 151 - 163

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ceej-2019-0011

Keywords
Generalized Linear Model, risk modelling, insurance pricing, satellite imagery, Google Street View

© 2019 Kinga Kita-Wojciechowska et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Google Street View image predicts car accident risk

Published Online: Apr 18, 2020

Page range: 151 - 163

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ceej-2019-0011

KeywordsGeneralized Linear Model, risk modelling, insurance pricing, satellite imagery, Google Street View

© 2019 Kinga Kita-Wojciechowska et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
Generalized Linear Model, risk modelling, insurance pricing, satellite imagery, Google Street View