Non-postal Uses and Economic Aspects
| This section requires expansion. |
While postcodes were introduced to expedite the delivery of mail, they are very useful tools for several other purposes, particularly because codes are very fine-grained and identify just a few addresses. Among uses are:
- Finding the nearest branch of an organisation to a given address. A computer program uses the postcodes of the target address and the branches to list the closest branches in order of distance as the crow flies (or, if used in conjunction with streetmap software, road distance). This can be used by companies to inform potential customers where to go, by job centres to find jobs for job-seekers, to alert people of town planning applications in their area, and a great many other applications.
- Postcodes can be used with satellite navigation systems to navigate to an address by street number and postcode.
- Postcodes are used by non-life insurance companies to assess premiums for motoring/business/domestic policy premiums.
- Postcodes are used by life insurance companies and pension funds to assess longevity for pricing and reserving.
Read more about this topic: Postcodes In The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or aspects:
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“... of all the aspects of social misery nothing is so heartbreaking as unemployment ...”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)