Sexist Car insurance

I'm_With_Stupid

iceman wrote:

Do you honestly believe the system would be allowed if it was reversed (ie women pay more than men cos the stats back it up)??

I assume you are not both completely !!!!!! and so realise that it would not. So I can see absolutely no argument in favour of such blatent discrimination.

Incidentally, are they allowed to take a disibility into account when they consider a person's premium and increase it if they consider them a greater risk?

impy78

That depends on what the condition is - certainly with type 1 diabetes or a pacemaker the premium goes up, but then disabled people get free insurance from motability anyway, so that's not really an issue.

magyar

I'm_With_Stupid wrote:

Incidentally, are they allowed to take a disibility into account when they consider a person's premium and increase it if they consider them a greater risk?

No. See Astaroth's quotes above.

magyar

I'm_With_Stupid wrote:

Who ever said that it shouldn't be rated? You make a choice to buy a Ferrari. You make a choice to park it on the street. You make a choice to use your car for work purposes rather than just social and commuting. You don't make a choice to be a man, nor has anyone in history crashed a car as a result of them being a man. Plenty of people have made a claim or had their claim increased as a result of parking in a high crime area, putting shiny new alloys on a car that's easy to steal, having a lack of experience to deal with the road situation, driving a car that will cost a lot for insurers to repair, and a lot of other factors that are already considered in your application. Certain things are always going to cost more based on choices. What I'm saying is that insurance quote should only take these factors into account. It would be exactly the same as it is currently, except that the box for gender and age would be gone (and like I said, driving experience would still be a factor, so older drivers with experience would get cheaper insurance anyway). I don't see how that simple suggestion seems so difficult for people to get their head around.

OK so out of interest, if Arthur becomes Martha, does he qualify for cheaper insurance? And if so, at which point? I'd more than happily stick a dress on to save £200 a year...

Astaroth

Unless the situation has changed a sex change does not change your legal status of gender (there was press years ago about a man who had had a sex change but as they were still legally male were put into the male wing of a prison and needless to say was getting raped on a regular basis). That said and done an insurer is unlikely to ask for a birth certificate to confirm the birth gender of a person.

Disability is not allowed to be used as a rating factor other than the increase in value of any modifications to their vehicle. This is an admitted and accepted version of positive discrimination with the reasoning being given that the discrimination is justified to help these people lead as full and productive life as possible. The matter is however fairly low key as those with significant disability are entitled to a lease vehicle which includes insurance "free" insurance through the governments Mobility scheme (insurance provided by Royal & Sun Alliance)

The question on if the reverse was happening, ie women got higher premiums than men, would it still occur has a very obvious answer. Yes. In fact it does happen already as, as previously stated, when people get into old age women actually pay higher insurance than men. Again this is based on statistical evidence.

In addition to this there have been 2 insurers set up in the past as "men only" insurers (equiv to Diamond) - both passed into obscurity without a mass out cry from the female population. Unfortunately they found what all the mainstream insurers found.... with a males only contributing to the common pool the premiums were significantly higher than "mixed sex" insurers who have the female aspect widening the pool and lowering the overall risk.

I'm With Stupid - whilst I understand your point about the fact a person cannot help what gender they are I have to fundamentally disagree with you that people should be treated identically irrespective of their differences. The different genders are different, both have their strengths and weaknesses, to deny this and try to artificially make them the same is simply positive discrimination rather than what in your eyes is negative discrimination. I am not saying one is over all better than the other just acknowledge and accept the differences exist. I think any claim that differences do not exist is just yet more evidence of the political correctness madness that we are all descending into.

As to other rating factors.... you stated previously that you do not like age and gender ratings based on statistics and that ratings should not be based on statistics.... if we remove statistics from the question should the post code prefix WR3 or WR2 carry a higher premium? We obviously cant use crime rate because that is a statistic... cant use accident black spots because that is a statistic.... guess we have to go down to an underwriter simply deciding on their personal feeling for the two areas then.... and you think this is a way to remove prejudice and discrimination?

iceman_2

magyar wrote:

It seems like we will have to agree to differ. All I can say is that I work with a lot of people in the City, including investors, traders and lawyers and I can tell you that these six figure bonuses are very rare.

I said 5, 6 and 7. I accept 6 and 7 are reasonably rare but 5 most certainly isn't. I base this on the fact that my ex-girlfriend worked in a small Lloyds-based syndicate, the bonusses were obscene and totally disproportionate. They also managed to get through hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on expenses for lavish "business" lunches and drinks receptions. I don't beleive this company was particularly abnormal in this respect.

iceman_2

Astaroth wrote:

The question on if the reverse was happening, ie women got higher premiums than men, would it still occur has a very obvious answer. Yes. In fact it does happen already as, as previously stated, when people get into old age women actually pay higher insurance than men. Again this is based on statistical evidence.

OK, how long do you think this would last if a insurance company called "grandads wheels" was started with adverts saying granny sheila can't drive safely? I imagine it's only allowed cos no-one knows about it and its not publicised.

magyar

iceman wrote:

I said 5, 6 and 7. I accept 6 and 7 are reasonably rare but 5 most certainly isn't. I base this on the fact that my ex-girlfriend worked in a small Lloyds-based syndicate, the bonusses were obscene and totally disproportionate. They also managed to get through hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on expenses for lavish "business" lunches and drinks receptions. I don't beleive this company was particularly abnormal in this respect.

I still don't really see your point, though. We all know that there are guys in the city earning megasalaries who have meaningless meetings over a nice glass of claret. I'm sure we can agree that they're utter lazy bounders (mostly because we don't earn that much).

This is still absolute peanuts compared to the amount of money they're dealing with and if it affects people's premiums by more than a 1% I'd be amazed. More like 0.1%.

Astaroth

The majority of Lloyds syndicates however do not write personal motor insurance and instead specialise in things like marine insurance, satiliate, kidnap etc where premiums are much higher, profits are much higher (proportionally) but the risk of one off massive losses are much higher too. You will find direct insurers for the personal lines market are VERY different.

As to 5 figure bonuses.... being realistic.... how much do you think you would have to pay someone to take on the responsibility of delivering £10b turnover? Given high profile level of these jobs they can never brush it under the carpet if they fail and mess up once and you are basically out of a job for life. Lets take a very conservative figure of £200,000 as a salary for someone. For them to get a 5 figure bonus they would only have to receive a 5% bonus/ "commission"... I am sure a lot of people would complain like hell if they "only" got 5%. In all the sales and non-sales roles I have ever held all of my annual bonuses were over 5%.

Proportionally to the non-insurance industry when comparing turnover insurance execs actually dont really get that great a pay.

Astaroth

iceman wrote:

OK, how long do you think this would last if a insurance company called "grandads wheels" was started with adverts saying granny sheila can't drive safely? I imagine it's only allowed cos no-one knows about it and its not publicised.

As stated - there were 2 companies that did exactly this (though not targeted at older people) which I am aware of - possibly more that I may not know of. They were moderate level of advertisements including TV for their launch campaigns.

They failed because a difference does exist - 1 went under because they tried to artificially create a common pool that allowed them to price cheaply for men and it was unstable. The second faded away when they allowed the common pool to grow as it had to but this meant that they were more expensive for men than an insurer that covers both.