Insurance costs set to soar for females as EU Gender Directive comes in to force

Joy-AM

(Apologies in advance if this has been previously mentioned on another thread).

Currently, some forms of insurance are cheaper for women however from 21st December 2012 when the EU Gender Directive comes into force, insurers will no longer be permitted to use gender as a means to differentiate premiums between men and women.

Typically women currently pay lower for their life insurance costs but with the implementation of the Gender Directive, whilst taking into account estimates by HM Treasury, women’s premiums could go up by as much as 15%. Women are likely to be worst affected, with Car Insurance premiums and Life Insurance premiums set to rise sharply.

The Directive will also have an impact on males; Until 21 December 2012 men are entitled to higher private pension incomes (annuities) than women as statistically women live longer, meaning their pension income has to stretch further.

After 21st December, male and female annuity rates will be equalised thanks to the Gender Directive. Therefore men wishing to buy their annuity rates this year need to act sooner rather than later in order to take advantage of the current higher male annuity rates – this will not affect existing annuities in payment.

For females, the best way minimalize the potential cost is to review your Insurance arrangements or lack thereof, before the ruling comes into effect. Life Insurance becomes more expensive the older you are when it is taken out, so acting now you could save money regardless of the EU Gender Directive.

For males, it is more important than ever to shop around for the best deal to boost your retirement income. In addition, men should consider putting income protection arrangements in place before December as costs are likely to increase.


What's your views on using gender as a means to differentiate premiums between men and women?

ACG

Its not just car insurance, its life insurance, health insurance i think also pensions are affected also.

I personally think its rediculous, if im more likely to have a crash, die, become ill because of my sex then i expect to pay more - because the risk is higher. I might not be happy but it makes perfect sense - to do it the way it has gone doesnt make anyone happy and it also makes very little sense.

I pay more in insurance than my dad - do i say thats ageist? no!

rudekid48

Age "discrimination" will be next............watch this space

Just_Some_Guy

I always thought this was a bad decision. Insurers have been charging men more for insurance as they have something like a billion policy years worth of data which tells them that men generally cost more to insure; they're not being charged more out of misandry which would be a legitimate human rights case.

Men simply costing more might be an inconvenient truth in certain quarters but the gender directive means that half of society will be paying too much and the other half too little. That doesn't seem fair to me!

vaio

surely anything that allows insurers to tailor a policy more closely to the individual must be a good thing?

I thought all the gender directive was doing was stopping insurers assuming boys are bad/girls are good until the boy or girl concerned had proved they were good or bad via their driving/claims record?

Bit of an emotive thread title, (lifted from the daily mail?) how about "insurance costs set to be slashed for males when EU gender directive comes in" or even "EU forces British Insurers to get in line with the rest of civilised society and stop discriminating on gender"?

rudekid48

vaio wrote: »

surely anything that allows insurers to tailor a policy more closely to the individual must be a good thing?

I thought all the gender directive was doing was stopping insurers assuming boys are bad/girls are good until the boy or girl concerned had proved they were good or bad via their driving/claims record?

Bit of an emotive thread title, (lifted from the daily mail?) how about "insurance costs set to be slashed for males when EU gender directive comes in" or even "EU forces British Insurers to get in line with the rest of civilised society and stop discriminating on gender"?

A nice idea but that is not what is going to happen, the vast majority of Insurers have simply put the female rates up to match males.

dunstonh

There are already suggestions in the industry that unisex pricing is already fully priced in or mostly there in some product areas.