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

kimbalena

tbourner wrote: »

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?

Sorry off topic a little here sorry folks but really wanted to address this. This is wrong on on 2 levels:
1) I think this may be a little short sighted bordering on ignorant! Women have jobs now don't you know, proper full time jobs, which they drive to or for. I work for a multinational company and there are as many female sales reps "out there" as males reps. I have been delivered to by both male and female delivery people. I have been in taxi's with both male and female drivers. I am genuinely shocked there are still people out there who think women are just sitting at home while the men go out to work! Apologies if you actually have done any kind of figures gathering to quantify this statement - I have a suspicion you don't!
2) But if we go along with your "assumptions" that women don't go out and drive - surely that should be a stat which means they are entitled to pay less insurance as they don't go out and are therefore far less likely to ever be on the road and therefore be involved in an accident!
I don't believe number 2 but just wanted to point out the flaw in the logic!

tbourner

kimbalena wrote: »

1) Women have jobs now don't you know, proper full time jobs, which they drive to or for.

I said "Compared to men, women do far fewer miles." This is true. Not so much now as it was 20 years ago, but still true.

kimbalena wrote: »

2) surely that should be a stat which means they are entitled to pay less insurance as they don't go out and are therefore far less likely to ever be on the road and therefore be involved in an accident!

Indeed, as I said there are factors which are more important than sex and should be weighted accordingly. A Female who is very aggressive on the road, speeds, cuts people up etc. and drives hundreds of miles a week should have a higher premium than a man of the same age driving a similar car, but who only goes out on weekends for a short spin and has never had any speeding fines or accidents. This doesn't seem to be the case which I find absurd.

kimbalena

Indeed it may well be absurd, but unfortunately unless we move to a "big brother" state where people are monitored 100% of the time, no insurance company knows who is doing what, they do not know who is driving badly (unless caught). Therefore the only facts insurance companies have to go on is statistical risk. It may not be "fair" on the safe male driver, or the safe 17 year old to be assessed on others, but that is the only way to assess risk based upon a group!
The only alternative is to take worst case scenario. Unfortunately for everyone (men and women), insurance companies will now be basing quotes on every worst case scenario so everyone will pay maximum costs. I think what most people here are losing sight of is the fact that men were not worse off for having sex as an assessment, women were just better off. Now everyone is worse off except the insurance companies.

tbourner

I don't think it needs to be Big Brother though. If you don't give them your theory and practical test results you get put onto 'default' risk, they can get history of accidents easily enough so you can't lie about that, and they would be able to get your mileage at the end of the year to check you weren't way out on your estimates.

meher

really everyone should pay equally and not expect values to be applied selectively because it would be no different to profiling but businesswise it might not be seen as shrewd - so it is probably a case of how you're looking at it but the courts have to focus on moving towards greater equality

psdie

Seems like a silly step to me - if the stats say women are in general safer drivers than men (even if that's because of the tendency of some to poodle at under the speed limit ), it doesn't seem unreasonable to take that into account in insurance quotes in the same way as age, location, etc. I'm assuming that when calculating the relative risk, they looked at accidents divided by mileage, rather than just absolute numbers of male-vs-female claims.

However - if this sort of sex-bias is widely deemed acceptable by members here (myself included), this raises questions about other areas of law. For example, why is it illegal to reflect in salaries the fact that women can take up to 39 weeks' maternity leave, during which she continues to accrue pension and holiday entitlement?

Whilst most of the direct salary cost can be reclaimed, this places *significant* administrative and cover-staff burden on the employer that doesn't occur with male employees. And yet it is *outright illegal* to build in a % compensation for this in salaries, despite the cost of employing someone female being demonstrably higher on average.

Please don't just knee-jerk flame me - think about it for a second, given that most appear to agree that if men are higher risk drivers, they should pay higher premiums. Of course, in practice there is already a significant gap between average male and female pay; my point is that this gap is deemed illegal and to be stamped on at all costs, without any reflection of the actual cost difference for employers.

In both cases it seems somewhat "equality for equality's sake" rather than commonsense? {be gentle! }

tbourner

psdie wrote: »

In both cases it seems somewhat "equality for equality's sake" rather than commonsense?

Same as the rumour (I don't know if it's true) that the fire service are forced to employ women that often aren't as appropriate for the job as the men that are applying next to them.

ifan.goch

tbourner wrote: »

Same as the rumour (I don't know if it's true) that the fire service are forced to employ women that often aren't as appropriate for the job as the men that are applying next to them.

I can inform you that this certainly happens. I know of a female firefighter who is not strong enough to assist with the handling of the heavier ladders, and although she is paid the same as the male fire fighters she is only required to do light duties:cool:

carrielovesfanta

tbourner wrote: »

I said "Compared to men, women do far fewer miles." This is true. Not so much now as it was 20 years ago, but still true.


Indeed, as I said there are factors which are more important than sex and should be weighted accordingly. A Female who is very aggressive on the road, speeds, cuts people up etc. and drives hundreds of miles a week should have a higher premium than a man of the same age driving a similar car, but who only goes out on weekends for a short spin and has never had any speeding fines or accidents. This doesn't seem to be the case which I find absurd.

surely insurance statistics are based on the details of claims and payouts, not based on every person in the country, whether they are currently driving or not?

If your mum hasn't driven in 35 years, they wouldn't add her into the stats as a safe person who doesn't have accidents!

As for how far someone drives, that is taken into account in your quote (at least I alway have to enter those mileage details!) so whether you are a man or a woman, if you drive less, it will be cheaper than if you do 20k a year.

[Deleted User]

The insurance industry is just going to have to find more accurate measures of risk, per person. It is discriminatory to decide that I, as a male, will drive with less skill or with more recklessness than someone of similar occupation/age/location of the opposite sex.

It's quite simple to do this.. AND would be great for road safety. Put far more emphasis on the number of points you have on your license, any advance training you've done and your number of claims