Insurance recommendation engine using a combined collaborative filtering and neural network approach

• Main Author: Pillay, Prinavan
• Other Authors: Er, Sebnem
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Science 2021
• Subjects: Statistical Sciences
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33924

A recommendation engine for insurance modelling was designed, implemented and tested using a neural network and collaborative filtering approach. The recommendation engine aims to suggest suitable insurance products for new or existing customers, based on their features or selection history. The collaborative filtering approach used matrix factorization on an existing user base to provide recommendation scores for new products to existing users. The content based method used a neural network architecture which utilized user features to provide a product recommendation for new users. Both methods were deployed using the Tensorflow machine learning framework. The hybrid approach helps solve for cold start problems where users have no interaction history. The accuracy on the collaborative filtering produced 0.13 root mean square error based on implicit feedback rating of 0-1, and an overall Top-3 classification accuracy (ability to predict one of the top 3 choices of a customer) of 83.8%. The neural network system achieved an accuracy of 77.2% on Top-3 classification. The system thus achieved good training performance and given further modifications, could be used in a production environment.