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

pjsmiffy wrote: »

Now claims policy

Opps Typo

No Claims

philandstuff wrote: »

There is an issue of incentives here. Suppose an insurance company can make money charging £50 to group A but need to charge £100 to group B to offset their higher risk. If they are now required by law to charge the same amount to both groups, then you might think that they would charge £75. But this means group A would be less willing to pay, while group B would be quids in. So you'll get disproportionately more of the higher risk group (group who you're selling insurance at a loss to, and you'll go bankrupt.

This is the problem of information asymmetry. It means that, moral issues of equality aside, it's harder for an insurance company to stay in business if they are not allowed to discriminate based on risk factors.

Speaking as a male driver, I don't like it, but it's better than the alternative.

I don't think people are understanding this fully. If the driver is a risk then they will charge more, so in a year, two years or three years of driving, the insurance companies should rightfully judge you by your own claims, not other peoples which is what is happening now. Each year they can review the drivers claims and their liabilities in order to offer the correct payment.

So due to this why don't they charge the same no matter what sex you are, and after a certain amount of time they can review the driver and either decrease, increase or keep the payment the same

Should insurance be sexless?

Sounds like a cue for all the hoary old jokes about the man from the Pru and the hussy next door

I don't think insurance should be gender blind, gender is only one of a number of variables that are taken into account.

I passed my Full UK Driving Test at age 17 - the minimum standard required to legally drive a motor vehicle.
From 17 to 21 i drove accident free, but I cannot honestly say near-miss free.

When I was 21, I signed up for IAM Advanced Driving lessons and Test.
I chose to, and was lucky enough to spend 6 months with a RoSPRA Gold standard, IAM Observer, learning advanced driving techniques based on Roadcraft - the police driver's handbook.
The test can be passed (scraped) with weeks of intensive training, but I wanted to learn advanced driving techniques - not how to pass another test.
The test was 1 hour long with a serving/retired police driving examiner scrutinising every part of my driving ability, observation, etc. I performed a continuous running commentary for the entire hour - it's used to demonstrate your observation, awareness, concentration and tasking etc - but is no longer a requirement for the test - it's v.v. hard to learn to do well, and v. hard to maintain.
I passed, and the examiner commented on it being very good (top quartile) of tests undertaken, but not the best - tssh - police examiners are very hard to impress!

From 21 and for the next 5 years, I practiced (maintained) my advanced driving skills, including full awareness commentary!
I'd never been involved in, or around a near-miss or collision, and used the skills IAM taught to anticipate many hazards (and mistakes) that would otherwise have led to many near-misses, and possibly the odd collision, for myself or those around me. By observing other people's driving behaviour, and applying the skills IAM teaches - you can anticipate their mistakes, and where practicable and safe to do so, even prevent them making them.

My Girlfriend passed her test at 17, lost control of her car within 12 months, rolling it down an embankment, with her and her 3 occupants narrowly escaping (thank God), with recoverable injuries.

Every year, I ran Car Insurance quotes:
Me with clean full licence + IAM Advanced, and,
Her, with 3 points and written off car to show for the Collision
- Changing gender to female reduced lowest premium by £200 - £500
(more when I was <25, she was <21!)
- Changing 3points+'accident' to clean+'IAM Advanced' reduced lowest premium by only about £50.
- Adding 3point+'accident' female onto my insurance *always* reduced my lowest premium by over £100!
- I didn't know whether to laugh or curse - she always found it amusing, and had the bonus of being able to borrow my car to drive.

It does not take a statistician to work out the loading is based on profit-driven discrimination, not statistical risk.

I know from experience how much difference Advanced driver training makes to accident risk - the UK driving license is a minimum standard - not an acceptable one.

IAM http://www.iam.org.uk/
RosPA http://www.rospa.com/drivertraining/default.aspx

P.S. It's over 10 years now since I passed my IAM advanced, and i cannot honestly say i still drive near-miss free. I've never been involved in a collision, but IAM teaches you that a near-miss *is* a collision - it's a situation that you can be trained to anticipate and avoid.
- when i was 21 and having just passed IAM, my friends would comment it was like pre-cognition - you see the hazard before it develops.
- 10 years on, the difficulty of maintaining that standard without continuous training and assessment means I can see too many weaknesses in my driving have developed - far better than what i was taught to pass the minimum standard UK driving licence - but far below the level I was, and would want myself, and everyone else on the road to be at.
- I should be contacting the IAM methinks, to see if I can find another IAM Observer, as good as the one who really taught me to 'drive'.
- I would love the UK to move to a tiered system based on 'levels' of driving, rather than just a minimum standard, so that people (even us young male 'reckless' drivers) could take pride to demonstrate and maintain a better driving standard.