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Thread: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

  1. #1
    Abe Froman Risker's Avatar
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    Default EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    Quote Reuters
    Insurers must stop setting prices based on gender, an EU court ruled, in a move that could raise costs for women drivers, cut male pensions, and prompt more legal challenges to insurance pricing practices.

    "Taking the gender of the insured individual into account as a risk factor in insurance contracts constitutes discrimination," the European Court of Justice said on Tuesday.

    The ECJ told insurers to adopt a "unisex" approach to setting premiums from December 21, 2012, confirming a recommendation from its senior adviser in September.

    Insurers said the decision could push up motor insurance costs for women, who currently pay less than men because they are statistically less likely to be involved in accidents, by up to 25 percent.

    The ruling could also reduce retirement annuity payments to men, who currently get more than women to take account of their lower average life expectancy. Annuities are insurance policies which offer a regular income for life in return for a lump sum, usually paid on retirement.
    More here...

  2. #2

    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    Being of the female type persuasion, I have mixed feelings about this. They fall into three camps

    1) I don't want to pay more (Against)
    2) I'm not convinced that it's right to throw out many decades of actuarial knowledge (Against)
    3) I'm not a fan of discrimination, even if it does favour me! (For)

    However, I'm not keen on the idea that if further areas of 'discrimination' are banned I might be expected to pay substantially more to insure my 0.9ltr micromini hatchback to cover the cost of claims from all the 18yr old lads who could then afford to insure cars which are far too fast for their level of experience.
    Quitting something because it's hard is wrong, and quitting something because it's wrong is hard. One takes cowardice, the other bravery.

  3. #3
    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    It seems as though it would be fairer to do it based on individual profile/track record rather than membership of a class (e.g. human, or female ) if that were feasible. I suppose that is done already, albeit in a crude way, with insurance being based on where you live and things like no claims bonus? Are they still allowed to base the premiums partly on age, does anyone know? ETA sorry, have just read to the end of Risker's page and see they are at present but that that might change too.

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    Abe Froman Risker's Avatar
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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    I've given up driving so this can only affect me negatively however I think it's the right thing to do and that they should take it even further and remove discrimination based on age as well. It should be based on your personal circumstances, not on the behaviour of other people who happen to share a common trait with you. They wouldn't base insurance premiums on race so they shouldn't be allowed to do it on sex or age either. Such discriminations are things we should be removing from our society.

  5. #5
    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    We don't have a car either. We belong to a car club and the insurance is sort of bundled in with that, at a flat rate, so if they can do it why can't others? (Mind you they probably do it by charging everyone top whack.)

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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    Being slightly devil's advocate for a moment, as I see it, the 'take each driver as an individual' approach is flawed.

    I can understand the basic concept of a driver with fewer points on their licence or very few insurance claims being regarded as less off a risk. However there are plenty or dreadful drivers out there who, due to the sorry lack of policing on our roads, have clean licences, similarly there are thousands of uninsured drivers who won't have a good or bad history insurance wise.

    All of this leaves the insurance industry with the blunt instruments of age and gender etc. Anecdotally, I know that as a cyclist my life is far more likely to be placed at risk by certain types of driver, though more recently I'm often surprised by the aggresive behaviour of some young women.......having said that they have a long way to go to catch up with WVMs.
    From Sutton, Surrey, (or Greater London when they want to fleece me for the Olympics)

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    Abe Froman Risker's Avatar
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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    Quote Jiffy View Post
    I can understand the basic concept of a driver with fewer points on their licence or very few insurance claims being regarded as less off a risk. However there are plenty or dreadful drivers out there who, due to the sorry lack of policing on our roads, have clean licences, similarly there are thousands of uninsured drivers who won't have a good or bad history insurance wise.
    There's plenty of dreadful female drivers and old drivers with clean licences right now so that's a straw man. For people getting a new licence there are factors such as type of car driven, whether they have taken an advanced driving course, where the car is stored... All factors that people can change. It's grossly unfair to charge some people more for something they have no control over and can do nothing about. Insurance premiums would be a lot for people just starting to drive, but they are anyway, even with discrimination in place.

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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    Maybe. It would be interesting to know what the overall effect on average premiums would be though. I think it would be safe to say they would increase.
    From Sutton, Surrey, (or Greater London when they want to fleece me for the Olympics)

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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    Devil's advocate 2...

    The statistics show that young males ARE more likely to crash than young females. That's not name calling, it's just going on the evidence.

    Discrimination, to my mind, would be say an insurer offering different prices to young white males or young black males, young asain males etc, where I seriously doubt there is any difference is claim statistics. Not the same at all imo.

  10. #10
    Abe Froman Risker's Avatar
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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    So, if it can be proven that people of certain ethnicities are more likely to commit crimes than others they should be stopped and searched more often and that would be okay because there's a statistical correlation?

    I just think people should be treated as individuals.

    We'll find out some time next year how this pans out. Although the immediate prospect is that all women will be charged more and all men will pay less (yeah right!) I'm betting that more weight is put in to other factors that mean that people can be assessed for risk without resorting to such generalised approaches as what genitals you were born with.

    With any luck, by concentrating on other factors such as advanced driving lessons it'll give people more of an incentive to learn to be better drivers.

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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    Quote Risker View Post

    With any luck, by concentrating on other factors such as advanced driving lessons it'll give people more of an incentive to learn to be better drivers.
    I'd happily drink to that (not if I'm driving though obviously)
    From Sutton, Surrey, (or Greater London when they want to fleece me for the Olympics)

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    Default Re: EU court bans insurers from pricing on gender

    Quote Blue moon View Post
    Devil's advocate 2...

    The statistics show that young males ARE more likely to crash than young females. That's not name calling, it's just going on the evidence.

    Discrimination, to my mind, would be say an insurer offering different prices to young white males or young black males, young asain males etc, where I seriously doubt there is any difference is claim statistics. Not the same at all imo.
    However this information would never be collected in the first place so you can't possibly know whether there is a difference or not, the point is people are being categorised based on something that they have never chosen but is part of who they are.

    Saying it's statistically more likely is just a more formalised type of stereotyping.

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