Should Insurance Be Sexless - Martin's Blog & Site Vote

MrsBartolozzi

So it's discriminatory to offer different prices to different sexes? What about being ageist then? Older, retired folk get cheaper premiums and I find it's often those older people who I have to take special measures to avoid collisions with - stopping abruptly, failing to react to situations and what seems to be a general lack of awareness of what is going on around them.
Surely any group whose reaction time is medically considered to be slower than another group should be charged a higher premium rather than a lower one?

ohboy13

Why have they increased to the mans equivilant. what an excuse to increase insurance, they could have brought the mans down to the womans level. talk about discrimination, this is disgusting. yes make it equal. bring the cost DOWN to the mans level.

stevemcol

ohboy13 wrote: »

Why have they increased to the mans equivilant. what an excuse to increase insurance, they could have brought the mans down to the womans level. talk about discrimination, this is disgusting. yes make it equal. bring the cost DOWN to the mans level.

and how are they supposed to find the funds to do that?
it should have been obvious that the insurers would just use the excuse to wack up everyone's premium.

debbycuk

Does it really make any difference - surely this will be another excuse for insurance companies to put up premiums for everyone. :wall:
(sorry I really am a cynic at heart!)

Ah well, off to redo the household budget... kids don't really need food do they?

Cimscate

Quite shocked to hear Martyn on the radio this morning saying that we don't discriminate on race so should not do so on sex. As far as I am aware there is no statistical evidence saying that race affects driving habits but there is strong evidence that men are more likely to drive dangerously than women hence the higher rates. No need to bring race or colour into the discussion at all!

Don't let's forget that statistically men will benefit when it comes to their pension even if they lose out on car insurance. Having said all that I think the ECJ should keep out of our business anyway and let us make our own decisions about financial matters.

rpb

I'm male and have never caused a driving accident, but I realise that insurers have to pay out more money in claims to males because they have more accidents. Insurers therefore charge me more for my insurance. But I understand that. Statistically I'm a higher risk.

Insurance is there to cover you for when the unlikely happens, and the cost depends on the risk. If I take up mountain climbing, even if I'm *really really* careful I have to acknowledge that it's a risky activity and my premiums will be high. Why are my premiums so high when I'm really really careful and have never fallen off? Because lots of other people engaging in the same activity fall off and so there are lots of payouts. My premiums are going towards funding the payouts to all the (other) people taking the same risks who make claims.

So all those people saying, "I'm male and a really safe driver and my wife/girlfriend/female acquaintance has claimed loads of times" just don't get it. They may be really safe. The females in their anecdotes may be vehicular accidents waiting to happen. But that's irrelevant. Insurers don't know the future. They don't know when *you* are going to have an accident. Even if you're twice as likely as someone else to have an accident you may not have one in ten or more years, so the insurer will never know your personal exact likelihood of making a claim. They only know the risk of thousands of people just like you and can only base their premiums on that. It's a FACT that men cost more in claims than women. So if you are a man you are *statistically* a higher risk, and you are paying higher premiums because more men have to claim and insurers pay more money out to men.

Mountaineering insurance is more expensive than sleeping-in-bed insurance because the payouts are higher. Car insurance for males is more expensive than for females because the payouts are higher. There is no problem with this.

chickenboy

Now, I think most people have quickly come to the 2 points on the gender argument (being -- 1 - does it affect me?, and 2 - is it fair as men are statistically involved in more at fault, high cost claims).

But the ruling is more about answering the question of what is fair game for customer discrimination. WHAT IF it turned out insurance companies had done some number crunching and decided that black or asian drivers were a worse risk and therefore charged them more? Would that be allowed? (I would hope not).

Really the courts are saying what companies can and cannot discriminate on. So hopefully race is out, now gender is out, what next? - will they be barred from discriminating on age? (and mean we all pay the same as a newly qualified 18 year old boy, or a 92 year old?)

tbourner

pjsmiffy wrote: »

The sex of the driver is a very important factor in determining the risks. If you need any proof look at road death stats. (We all know Insurance companies live on Stats).

I want to know what stats they use though, is it just a list of road accidents and deaths with a M or F next to it? Cos if so, it's rubbish. How many female travelling salespeople do you know? How many female truck drivers or delivery people do you know? Or any other driving job for that matter. Compared to men, women do far fewer miles. My mum is in the statistics, she hasn't crashed for 40 years!! She hasn't driven for 35 years but do they take that into account?

haremscarem wrote: »

As a general rule, women are more nervous/dippy and men are more aggressive/cocky. It should be based on one strike and you're out as you can't base it on 'gender associations' Boy A and Girl A both get X amount first year, if you muck up by being a poor driver then you fall into the higher risk format. It would be interesting to see a statistic of how many men are insured on the road to women and there distances travelled each year.

Agree. There are plenty of other variables to work out risk with, practical and theory test results seem one of the most obvious. Mileage per year, age/type of car, and then after a few years NCB and accident history should all play a much bigger role in risk than sex.

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

So it's discriminatory to offer different prices to different sexes? What about being ageist then? Older, retired folk get cheaper premiums and I find it's often those older people who I have to take special measures to avoid collisions with - stopping abruptly, failing to react to situations and what seems to be a general lack of awareness of what is going on around them.
Surely any group whose reaction time is medically considered to be slower than another group should be charged a higher premium rather than a lower one?

The problem there is one which may also be attributed to female drivers, which is they cause accidents rather than actually being involved in them. Angry impatient man overtakes the slow doddery old lady and ends up crashing, the old lady drives on oblivious. This is still the angry man's fault though, I'm not saying careful drivers should be punished for holding up impatient people!!
I think age is a more relavant risk factor than sex anyway, as you will have more experience of driving in general. You still get young people who've driven far more than old people though, so again it's not really relevant, just goes to show how irrelevant sex should be though!

Twiggy_34

haremscarem wrote: »

As a general rule, women are more nervous/dippy.

Excuse me for taking offence at this statement, but I don't think there is ANY general rule which says that women are more dippy?!!! :mad:

I will however concede that women might be predisposed to being more nervous, which also equates to more cautious. Whereas in my experience men tend to be more confident (perhaps excessively so). And this is exactly part of the point in question and why men might be considered higher risk than women. I would think that anyone who tends to apply more caution on the road is more likely to avoid the accident which is waiting for the overly confident driver.

I thought it was interesting that race/ethnicity was mentioned in some posts. While I too hope this isn't ever brought into question with regard to risk factor, I wonder how far this whole discrimination issue could be taken. Through my work I know that certain ethnic backgrounds are statistically at higher risk of certain chronic diseases, and as such this factor is considered when calculating their risk of cardiovascular disease - does that make these risk calculators racist? I'm not allowed to post the full link because of being considered a new user still but it's qrisk.org

tbourner

Twiggy_34 wrote: »

I will however concede that women might be predisposed to being more nervous, which also equates to more cautious. Whereas in my experience men tend to be more confident (perhaps excessively so). And this is exactly part of the point in question and why men might be considered higher risk than women. I would think that anyone who tends to apply more caution on the road is more likely to avoid the accident which is waiting for the overly confident driver.

In general yes, all correct, but what I don't get is why they blanket that 'average' coloured tar over the entire population of each sex with a huge brush? I'm a male but I'm cautious and aware when driving, I got good pass results, did pass-plus, no points on my licence, no accidents etc. Surely that is all more important than what sex I am? They ask enough questions when applying for insurance why don't they USE some of the answers. I think they need to modifiy the weightings applied to each factor.