Motor Unisex Insurance Rates Approved

The ruling implies you can no longer take into account whether the subject is male or female in the statistical measurement of risk data or you can measure it but you have to apply the result differently - you'll have to hide the fact by some sort of cost averaging. Who is fooling who?
 
DerKaiser said:
Again, testosterone.

Why should a rating factor have to be due to a biological effect?
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As I understand the Directive you cannot discriminate on gender unless there is a biological justification, for example, it is legitimate to charge females more for maternity insurance, if such a thing exists.

Generally, where there is no gender issue involved you can use whatever rating factor you like for example the day of the week you were born even though it may be patently irrelevant.
 
Was Mary Mitchell O'Connor (FG) tryiing to make a point on risk equalisation by driving her car down the steps of the Dail? I suppose if some bloke can drive a cherry picker into the gates, she can drive her car out of them! What's good for the goose...etc. :D
 
Was Mary Mitchell O'Connor (FG) tryiing to make a point on risk equalisation by driving her car down the steps of the Dail? I suppose if some bloke can drive a cherry picker into the gates, she can drive her car out of them! What's good for the goose...etc.
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Surely she was just proving that women are Slower then men.

Sorry I mean slower drivers!

I think the rule is good for both men and women.

For certain insurances men will see an increase while women will also see an increase. However it is important that Insurance companies don't used this opportunity to bring their premiums up to the highest levels rather then averaging them out.

Car insurance should be based on your driving experience.
 
Lets be realistic,

Are Insurance companies going to act in the best interest of the consumer and drive down prices or are they going to use every opportunity to increase premiums and profit margins?
 
Insurers exist to make a profit and at the same time to remain competitive. You are actually paying less for your cover today because a lower paid worker in India is processing your claims and applications.

The insurance industry has always relied on risk assessment based on the probability of an event happening. In some cases using data compiled over hundreds of years. Today I'm sure genetics and the like can also fine tune the data and that could be biological justification.
 
Kevin Myers view

I don't agree with his comparison of 18 years males and 55 year old nuns. The ruling has banned discrimination on sex grounds but insurers can still charge a premium for younger drivers I presume?
 
NorfBank said:
Kevin Myers view

I don't agree with his comparison of 18 years males and 55 year old nuns. The ruling has banned discrimination on sex grounds but insurers can still charge a premium for younger drivers I presume?
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For the life of me, I cannot see the logic of allowing discrimination on age grounds which simultanously excludes discrimination on gender which is evidence-based. Both are equally imperfect disciminations; there will be reckless older drivers as much as there are careful young males. The basis for these differentials is averages, and surely this applies to all ways in which insurers set premiums.
 
I'm sure age grounds are evidence based too, presumably there are stats showing young drivers are involved in more accidents than older ones.

The existing law allowed member states to

"permit exemptions from the rule of unisex premiums and benefits, so long as they can ensure that the underlying actuarial and statistical data on which the calculations are based are reliable, regularly updated and available to the public"

This seems reasonable but if I was a very careful young male driver I would not be too happy.

I suppose the insurance companies will now have to put put more weight on driving experience, no claims bonuses, age of car, cc of car instead of a blanket increase for males.
 
horusd said:
For the life of me, I cannot see the logic of allowing discrimination on age grounds which simultanously excludes discrimination on gender which is evidence-based. Both are equally imperfect disciminations; there will be reckless older drivers as much as there are careful young males. The basis for these differentials is averages, and surely this applies to all ways in which insurers set premiums.
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I agree that in most instances the age grounds are purely statistical and not because of the age per se. Thus 40 year olds are better drivers than 20 year olds but not because of their age but because of, say, their driving experience, their attitudes etc. If society was concerned about age discrimination in motor rates then it would ban age rating and force companies to go directly to the causes. But society does not currently regard age rating in this area as offensive.

But using race as a rating factor is unacceptable to the majority in our society. A priori it is surely highly unlikely that people of different race who display quite marked biological differences otherwise would be exactly equal when it comes to biological longevity. Yet I think race differentiation in insurance pricing is banned.

Or take religion for that matter. I am quite sure that there are differences in risks which show some religious correlation, especially in societies like NI were religion would correlate to other social differences. Indeed religion may even be a direct risk factor, for example if it precludes one taking blood transfusions.

We have got used to gender rating in insurance and therefore tend to not regard it as offensive. Once this ruling gets bedded in I foresee a situation in 20 years time when people will marvel in disbelief how at one time young males were charged twice young females just as today we think how strange that at one time we could smoke in cinemas.

Finally, if society places a higher value on equality than on accurate insurance pricing, even if that differential pricing is directly justified (as opposed to statistically supportable), then it is open to society to force this equality on the markets whilst still preserving stable competition. One route is Risk Equalisation which is how we are going to address health insurance, where clearly age is a direct risk factor.
 
Okay Duke, I get the equality argument as a trump card, and I suppose it makes sense in some respects. Equality being a higher goal in the mix than perhaps a more strictly logical argument on statistical grounds. But it's a messy interfence in market realities in my opinion. Ironically, I think that judgements like this undermine equality more generally, because they fly in the face of what most people consider reasonable.
 
The ruling has opened up a can of worms. Age will be next to be challenged.

Just out of interest I did a quote for a 25 year old male and a 65 year old male, all other factors the same.
25 year old is 609pa
65 year old is 350pa

A young healthy safe driving male is charged more than a older, poor sighted, half deaf, male with slow reaction speeds.
 
Why not a system of insuring the car and not the driver? Works well in many EU states.
 
NorfBank said:
A young healthy safe driving male is charged more than a older, poor sighted, half deaf, male with slow reaction speeds.
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Bit harsh on 65 year olds! The 25 year old is probably doing higher mileage, at higher speeds with a greater likelihood of passengers in the car. Older drivers are much less likely to be involved in the hugely expensive catastrophic-injury accidents. Observe the slow moving vehicles on the road - more likely to be young males or older males?
 
orka said:
Bit harsh on 65 year olds! The 25 year old is probably doing higher mileage, at higher speeds with a greater likelihood of passengers in the car. Older drivers are much less likely to be involved in the hugely expensive catastrophic-injury accidents. Observe the slow moving vehicles on the road - more likely to be young males or older males?
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Probably being the important word.

It is still lumping groups of drivers together based on age alone with differing premiums as a consequence - a similar discrimination to grouping them based on sex alone, no?
 
No matter what way it is done an insurer will have to cover expected claims, meet their expenses, keep some in reserve and leave enough to make a profit.
 
Ah lads, you've all completely missed the point of this ruling. The European Court of Justice didn't want to get into tricky conversations about gender equality with their spouses, so they put the effective date off until 21/12/2012.

That's the day that the world ends.

Coincidence? I think not.
 
Liam, what are you calling us 'lads' for? On AAM do we call males and females lads from now on? LADs a Law Against Discrimination.

I'll ask an expert in biochemistry and genetics for her opinion when she's back on whether there is a biological basis for women to live longer than men. I'll let you know.
 
Dear Sumatra,

Please forgive my laziness - in my haste I didn't correctly address my post "lads and ladettes". :)
 
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