Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 17:11:20 -0400 From: Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro gps@kstream.com Subject: Data Mining Digs In, July 1999, American Demographics In American Demographics, July 1999, article Data Mining Digs In, Jennifer Lach writes about how companies use data mining to improve their business. Example: sports car owners. Farmers Insurance found a previously unnoticed niche of sports car enthusiasts: married boomers with a couple of kids and a second family car, maybe a minivan, parked in the driveway. Claim rates among these customers were much lower than other sports car drivers, yet they were paying the same surcharges. Farmers relaxed its underwriting rules and cut rates on certain sports cars for people who fit the profile (and presumably gained market share in this niche). Today the company is planning another data mining expedition, this time to identify car insurance customers who are good prospects for Farmers homeowner policies. "We're sitting on a gold mine," Boardman says of the company's database. "It can do much more than just send out the bills." See other stories from Fingerhut, Eddie Bauer, American Century Investments, Kraft Foods, as well as stories on data mining and fraud detection at http://americandemographics.com/publications/ad/99_ad/9907_ad/ad990709.htm
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