I am unsure why some of the points would make industry data not directly comparable. Maybe someone could provide good specific examples. Why would the following not make industry data not directly comparable? Sales method? Underwriting and claims settlement process? Nature of data stored? What do they mean by the nature of data? Coding of risk factors? Couldn't you just map the coding and then it would be comparable? Thank you
If one provider only sold products online, and another provider had its own salesforce who would visit potential customers, it would seem unfair to compare the sales volumes of both providers. If one provider had a very relaxed approach to paying out claims, and another which had a very tight claims management process, such differences would need to be borne in mind when comparing data (such as the loss ratio). Hope you can see that this is the sort of thing that would make industry data not directly comparable?
One company might have their data stored at policy level, whereas another company might have it split by benefit (so one policy might have multiple benefits attached to it). One company could keep paper records (!), and another uses spreadsheets or a data warehouse. These might be ways in which the nature of the data is different. For the coding of risk factors, think about what it means to be classed as a "smoker". If a policyholder has smoked a tobacco product within the last 12 months, then one company might classify them as a smoker. Another company might not be concerned if someone smokes less than 5 cigarettes a week. So each company might have a different understanding of what it means to be a smoker. In the data, however, it's likely to be coded in a binary way as either a "Y" or an "N".
