Sexist Car insurance

I'm_With_Stupid

lisyloo wrote:

The colour of your skin does not affect your likelihood of having accidents.
So if anyone were to implement such a business model (unlikely I think) then it would be purely racially motivated.

Your gender does currently affect your likelihood of having accidents.
Insurance is based on a number of "rules" that indicate how good or bad a risk you are.
These include not only gender but age, postcode, experience etc.

Currently this is all quite legal.

If it becomes illegal to discriminate in this way then be aware that you may end up paying a lot more on various insurances.
e.g. If you live in a "nice" postcode area and it became illegal to discriminate then you would have to pay more to subsidise people who live in "bad" areas.

The whole pricing model with insurance in that the higher risk you are the more you pay.
Gender is only ONE factor out of many so I think this is being blown out of proportion.
If you want to reduce your premium then there are a number of other things you can control such as your choice of vehicle.

I agree that men are more likely to have accidents, or at least accidents that cost more. However, you can collect as much data as you want about this, but that doesn't mean you have proved the causality. You must prove that these accidents were caused as a result of the driver being male, not just that the driver happened to be male. You regularly park your car on the street in a high crime area, and the causality of any claim is plain to see. Therefore it is in no way discriminatory to charge this road user a higher premium, since it is based on their actions.

Obviously I don't blame the insurers one bit. They're out to make a profit, and they'll use anything they can within the law to make as much as they can, in the same way that you'd have trouble getting businesses to fork out for disabled access unless it was a legal requirement. The problem isn't with the insurers, it's with the law. Even if there was evidence that the higher risk was as a direct result of the driver being male, there are laws to protect this sort of discrimination in pretty much every other aspect of life. Statistics say that women in their 20's are more likely to need extended leave from work, but it is against the law to discriminate against women because of this, because it is something that is out of her control, in the same way that race, sexuality or age is, and why we have laws to protect people on this basis also.

Personally, I believe that only behaviour, location and past driving records should legally be allowed to be factors in an insurance quote. All other factors equal, a 50 year old woman going for her first insurance quote should be charged the same as a 20 year old man in the same situation. I don't have a problem with the companies doing it currently, because they're out to make money, but I don't think that anyone can justify the fact that it's legal.

Oh, and hi, I'm new.

BettiePage

http://www.betterdrivingplease.com/passparameters.asp

magyar

pinkfluffybabe wrote:

Yes, I agree. I have lost count of how many times it has taken me 2/3 hours to get to work (a 1hr journey) because some eejit has driven into the back of someone on the dual carriageway. Most of these shunts are preventable if drivers left themselves enough space and paid more attention to the road.

A points and possibly a fine might make people be a bit more careful.

If you drive into the back of someone then (with a few exceptions) you were almost certainly driving without due care and attention. Most of these, of course don't result in the police being called and hence no charges. Even then it's usually a warning.

Personally, I get SO MAD :mad: when I leave enough space behind the car in front, then some **** moves into that gap! Out of interest, on those areas which say "leave two chevrons between you and the next car", do you EVER see anyone leaving a large enough gap.

magyar

I'm_With_Stupid wrote:

Personally, I believe that only behaviour, location and past driving records should legally be allowed to be factors in an insurance quote. All other factors equal, a 50 year old woman going for her first insurance quote should be charged the same as a 20 year old man in the same situation. I don't have a problem with the companies doing it currently, because they're out to make money, but I don't think that anyone can justify the fact that it's legal.

Oh, and hi, I'm new.

Welcome!

I actually think this is a reasonable idea; not because of fairness, but because the net result would be that the cost of having a claim would be collosal.

Would mean that you'd have problems with uninsured drivers, thefts etc., but hey, this isn't going to happen so as a theoretical point, it's quite interesting.

Astaroth

I personally prefer the South African idea where your Third Party insurance is paid as part of your tax on petrol and therefore unless you have a car that can drive without fuel you cannot drive without insurance.

Obviously on top of that you can then go to an insurance company and pay for fire, theft and accidental damage if you want.

Only joined late in the thread so will not claim to have read all 5 pages of posts.... discrimination is differentiation without justification. Insurance works purely on statistics.... sure people say afterwards "why do you think we experience less claims from X type of people" but that is a "nice to know" rather than what actually occurs and there are rating factors that seem to have no logical explanation but are proven time and time again to be true.

It is therefore not discrimination as there is a basis for it, it is simply differentiation. The one exception to this is disability which you cannot legally differentiate on (with the exception that a modified vehicle may be worth more).

If there is any factor (other than disability) then an insurer could rate on it if they wanted and could substantiate their decisions if required. The reality however is that many factors cant be measured (eg a question of if someone eats, drinks or smokes whilst driving, increases risks of claims but an insurer will never be able to prove that someone did do this unless after stating they dont unless the police caught them doing it) or would simply give rise to too much bad press.

Race is the common wild card that people call up.... the stats I have seen shows that if you have 2 people that are identical in every sense other than their skin colour that one is no more likely or less likely to have accidents. If there was evidence to the contrary then it would be legal for an insurer to differentiate however an insurer may decide it wouldnt want to weather the bad press it gets... of cause others may decide that the fact they can now knock 10% off chinese people's insurance is going to be a bigger draw to people than the fact they are loading indian peoples insurance by 7%.

Gorgeous_George

Most couples will have joint insurance with the male being the policyholder.

Any claim where the female is not driving will be counted as a claim by the male. This may include fire, theft and damage when the car is unattended.

lisyloo - I'd need to get my insurance for less than £60 to match your %age. However, from Ann Robinson's test the nation, it is clear that men are better at maths - did you do your sums right? or do you drive a Fiat 500?



GG

magyar

Gorgeous_George wrote:

Most couples will have joint insurance with the male being the policyholder.

Why? We haven't. When we used to have one car it was insured with my wife as main driver and me as a second driver - worked out cheaper.

Astaroth

Because statistically men are more likely to be the main driver given the average household has less than 2 cars etc. That doesnt mean that everyone does.

The point is fairly mute however as gender is not a rating factor on the fire and theft aspect of a policy - if you do get a FTO policy (obviously fairly rare) there will be no difference based on the gender of the policyholder (as there will be no driver)

magyar

Astaroth wrote:

Because statistically men are more likely to be the main driver given the average household has less than 2 cars etc. That doesnt mean that everyone does.

Depends on your definition of 'main driver', but provided it's not the case that one party does hugely more than the other, then you'd likely get away with putting the woman as the main driver.

Astaroth wrote:

The point is fairly mute however as gender is not a rating factor on the fire and theft aspect of a policy - if you do get a FTO policy (obviously fairly rare) there will be no difference based on the gender of the policyholder (as there will be no driver)

But George's point above was that since (statistically, as you point out) men are more likely to be the policyholder in cases where a couple share a car, then if there is a theft claim, this will be considered 'a claim by a man', so whilst it doesn't meant that "men are more likely to have their car stolen", it does mean "men make more claims due to theft".

Astaroth

magyar wrote:

Depends on your definition of 'main driver', but provided it's not the case that one party does hugely more than the other, then you'd likely get away with putting the woman as the main driver.

Main Driver would follow a lay persons definition as I dont think I have ever seen it defined in a policy book so in my opinion as a lay person it would be either the person who does the most mileage or spends the most time behind the wheel of the car

magyar wrote:

But George's point above was that since (statistically, as you point out) men are more likely to be the policyholder in cases where a couple share a car, then if there is a theft claim, this will be considered 'a claim by a man', so whilst it doesn't meant that "men are more likely to have their car stolen", it does mean "men make more claims due to theft".

My point was that a theft claim generally counts against the last driver of the vehicle or the PH and therefore statistically more often will count against the man. However with all the insurers I have worked for, when underwriting/ actuaries are reviewing the rating figures for gender they only look at accidental damage claims (both own vehicle damage or third party) and therefore a theft claims would be excluded from the calculations.

With one insurer I did work for vandalism claims would be the 1 exception as these were registered as AD claims