Insurance company settles on ageism case

Sleipnir

It's a shame it didn't actually go to court as the insurance company wouldn't have won and it would have set a precedent in law. Ah well.

The Equality Authority has welcomed a settlement by insurance company First Call Direct in a case of potential age discrimination. The company had refused to quote a male claimant because he was under 25 years of age. Under the Equal Status Act, it cannot discriminate against people on the basis of their age in the provision of goods and services. The Chief Executive of the Equality Authority, Niall Crowley, today said that he hopes the case will set a precedent that will be followed across Ireland, by removing the lower age limits used to exclude some drivers.

Kaskade

so all them times the quinn direct tell you that they cant quote you on a particular car because they consider it a "high performance sports car" and you have to be 25 is all bull???

Sleipnir

Well no. They can't refuse to quote you purely because of your age.

They can say; you being 25 years old driving a 2-litre turbo puts you in a higher risk bracket than a 45 year old driving the same. Your quote is €15,000

koneko

Ha, Quinn Direct, they were "interesting" to deal with. I told them that on the phone, legally you have to quote me, it doesn't matter what age I am.

They said "No, it's company policy". So I asked him, does company policy override the law then, yeah? (sarcastically). He said "Yes... it's company policy"

Gurgle

Whoopee doo, they have to quote you.
Of course there is no upper limit on the quote.

Kaskade

Gurgle wrote:

Whoopee doo, they have to quote you.
Of course there is no upper limit on the quote.

By law it has to be a fair quote. If you get refused insurance a certain amount of times the first company you tried has to quote you if you are not currently insured otherwise your current insurer has to quote you.

I dont know how many screaming matches I have had with quinn direct over the whole sport car - age 25 thing. At the moment Im 23 insured on ITR and my other half is 24 on V6 FTO. So if you scream at them they will insure you.

Rang them a while back to get a quote on a 2.5 Turbo GTS R33 Skyline (not a GRT) and they said no way , no way, no way. Got really pissed off and told them that I knew they had to insure me by law so they rang back and said they didn't have the GTS on their system but they could give me a quote in a GTR. It was €300 less than I am paying on the ITR. Couldn't believe it. There was now way they would insure me earlier but once you push them they have to give you a fair quote.

They know that they have to quote you but most people just give up after the first 10 or so phone calls so they get away with it.

Moral of the story - never give up!!

Victor

Sleipnir wrote:

They can say; you being 25 years old driving a 2-litre turbo puts you in a higher risk bracket than a 45 year old driving the same. Your quote is €15,000

Well not quite. It needs to be done on a sound statistical basis, which is what the act says.

Stark

Does that actually get enforced though? I mean if you compare the difference in quotes you'll get from Hibernian and AXA in the exact same situations then you have to wonder "How do Hibernian manage to provide such cheaper premiums than AXA" especially since young drivers are probably migrating to them in droves bumping up the number of claims.

Victor

Stark wrote:

Does that actually get enforced though? I mean if you compare the difference in quotes you'll get from Hibernian and AXA in the exact same situations then you have to wonder "How do Hibernian manage to provide such cheaper premiums than AXA" especially since young drivers are probably migrating to them in droves bumping up the number of claims.

The individual company might have a different database to work from and apply different but equally valid actuarial rules.

Seth Brundle

Given the extreme difficulties the MIAB (at least I think it was the MIAB) had in getting info from the insurance companys for their report and there is no obligation on them to provide their statistics then Victor's point about the sound statistical basis may be true but may not the reality

Mailman

Where prima facie evidence of discrimination exists as in this case the obligation is on the respondent to prove that they didn't discriminate unfairly.
Without showing their statistics or other credible evidence the respondent will probably be found to have discriminated against the claimant