Direct Line Home Insurance - warning - sexist?

Flybaby

Hi,
When renewing house insurance recently, we found that our house insurance was £100 cheaper if put in my husbands name rather than mine with our usual insurer, Direct Line.
I was gobsmacked as I normally do all the household stuff and had only asked husband to renew house insurance as I was poorly on that day and would never have discovered this anomaly otherwise.
All other insurance companies reviewed gave the same priced quotation for our property, no matter which of us was put down as lead policy holder. (We are similar in age, job, financial history etc)
When I called direct line I was told to "take out the policy in husbands name then".
I wonder how much extra I have paid to direct line over the years for the privilege of using my poor female name instead of my husbands on our home insurance policy. And there was me thinking that insurers were not allowed to positively or negatively discriminate on gender anymore (hence why my vehicle insurances went up!) A few pounds I would not have been too fussed about, but £100? Thought that was taking the mickey,


Anyway, just thought I would post to warn others of this so that any other direct line users can try policy quotations in both own and partners names to see if they can get cheaper quotes.

GrumpyPL

What an absolutely ridiculous post. It's not sexism whatsoever.

Direct Line have decided that because female policy holders are more likely to make a claim on their home insurance as is shown to them by their claim figures, that they will charge females more to take out a policy to cancel out this risk.

Not sexism and they're well entitled to do this.

David_InsDef

GrumpyPL wrote: »

What an absolutely ridiculous post. It's not sexism whatsoever.

Direct Line have decided that because female policy holders are more likely to make a claim on their home insurance as is shown to them by their claim figures, that they will charge females more to take out a policy to cancel out this risk.

Not sexism and they're well entitled to do this.

What an absolutely ridiculous response.... They're not entitled to do it at all - the EU Gender Directive that came into force in December 2012 put pay to that.

To the OP, it really is unlikely that Direct Line are rating on gender now that it's against the law - it's more likely to be some other factor specific to you or your husband. Are you both registered on the electoral roil etc? Dare I say it, but could it be something the Credit Reference Agencies hold or claims history related? It may be that they've quoted as a new policy and given a new customer discount to whomever is now down as the 'policyholder'?

InsideInsurance

GrumpyPL wrote: »

Not sexism and they're well entitled to do this.

It is correct that it wasnt sexism as it was based on statistical analysis rather than prejudice but using gender as a rating factor was outlawed by the EU anyway.

There are a host of possibilities why two similar people can get differing insurance quotes but its highly unlikely to be down to gender given that its illegal and whilst that fact may have been forgotten by the general population its still very much in the mind of insurance.

David_InsDef

InsideInsurance wrote: »

It is correct that it wasnt sexism as it was based on statistical analysis rather than prejudice but using gender as a rating factor was outlawed by the EU anyway.

A female bias on home insurance claims experience though?

stator

As mentioned above I imagine it's down to the new customer discount.

ps are you the same age?

InsideInsurance

David_InsDef wrote: »

A female bias on home insurance claims experience though?

Insurance is based on stats not logic. Cant say I recall what used to be in the rating tables before gender was stripped out of them for Home but if you wanted to try and be logical then:

1) Women typically have more jewelry/ carry a handbag with a fair values worth of stuff in it and therefore potentially more PP cover and theft claims

2) Women may be more house proud and so more likely to claim for aesthetic damage to carpets, rugs, furniture etc -v- a bloke who'll just turn the cushion over or move the sofa to cover the stain etc

bbk87

From what I have seen, it depends when you take out the quote. I got a quote on one day and it was £457, did it again a few days later and it shot up to £650.

Plus new customers get better discounts as stated above.

Flybaby

Sorry to have caused annoyance, whilst I am annoyed at the situation, my point of posting was only to maybe help others when getting insurance quotes. As it goes, yes, we are both on electoral register etc, and basically summarised we have no negative histories financially at all and are generally very good with money etc, just don't have very much of it! I am one year older than hubby, other than our names and genders, the only difference on the application was our jobs, he is graphic designer and I am H&S consultant. The quotation under my name remained the same over the course of a week (while we were looking into it) and was the same on both the renewal letter they sent and when I completed online quote as new customer. When we then changed the online quote to his name, gender and job, the price quoted dropped £100. I have obviously heard of tweaking insurance quotes with job titles and offers etc, but I had not come across any reference to trying quotes in partners name to see if you get cheaper quote. Just thought this info might help others get cheaper quotes.

InsideInsurance

Flybaby wrote: »

was the same on both the renewal letter they sent and when I completed online quote as new customer.

This therefore sounds as if it is your answer then.

Their website is setup to identify returning customers and just return their renewal quote to them as they are not a "new customer" so not eligible for new customer discounts.

Try again with some made up details - different name, change date of birth by a day etc and see what the price comes back as as a random female. The only issue with this is that the CRA files wont create a match so a loading may be applied for the perceived fraud risk.