Male/female insurance rant

R.O.R

Xios wrote: »

I agree hugely on this, If you take the raw data, meaning the number of accidents involving men, and the number involving women, of course men are going to have a much much higher count because there are much more male drivers on the roads. This information should be taken on a % basis, how much % of males crash vs how much % of females.

This may not count, but there's also much more males using their vehicles for works, such as taxi drivers, service men for ESB/Bord Gás and all the sparks and carpenters that require them to be on the road for much longer times and distances. I'm not saying that no women work on the road, just saying (without evidence) that there is a lot more men doing it.

If insurance was on a cent per mile basis, all the above would be relevant.

Eoin

ha-ya-said-what wrote: »

Nah their sat thinking, "We are equal, but we just write the cars off & daddy fixes it or buys a new one so the insurance doesn't find out"


Genral thing I have noticed with RTAs:
Man - Crashes car, claims on insurance, takes the hit

Woman - Crashes car ... runs to daddy or partner so solve it, crying she doesn't want her insurance to go up or anyone to know she crashed, generally 17- mid 20s

You can leave that crap at the door please.

Eoin

Xios wrote: »

I agree hugely on this, If you take the raw data, meaning the number of accidents involving men, and the number involving women, of course men are going to have a much much higher count because there are much more male drivers on the roads. This information should be taken on a % basis, how much % of males crash vs how much % of females.

This may not count, but there's also much more males using their vehicles for works, such as taxi drivers, service men for ESB/Bord Gás and all the sparks and carpenters that require them to be on the road for much longer times and distances. I'm not saying that no women work on the road, just saying (without evidence) that there is a lot more men doing it.

And therefore males are a higher risk to the insurance company, no?

ha-ya-said-what

eoin wrote: »

You can leave that crap at the door please.

It is how it is with the RTAs we get, reason being the women tend to have cars of a lesser value than males, in most cases cheaper just to sell for breaking, repair or replace rather than claim on the insurance.

Xios

eoin wrote: »

And therefore males are a higher risk to the insurance company, no?

Well no, if you have 70 males and 35 females insured, the odds are 2 to 1 for the for crashes to be male. Just because there's more of us, doesn't mean we have to pay twice as much.

djimi

I dont know how much of a factor it is also, but I know of the two accidents I have been involved in, both times they were caused by the incompitence of women drivers. The first time the driver owned up and paid, no excuses, but the second time the woman caused the accident but refused to accept the blame, but of course in an accident between a 21 year old bloke in a Honda Civic and a 40odd year old woman in a Ford Fiesta it couldnt be seen that the woman was at fault so I ended up getting loaded with an insurance claim for an accident that wasnt my fault, but I had no way of proving otherwise (it ended up 50/50 fault officially).

Im not saying that this is always the case, and Im not saying that male drivers (young ones in particular) arent complete morons at times, but I am saying that from my ten years or so driving experience I have seen a lot of women do some terribly stupid things behind the wheel of a car, and generally display a complete lack of ability when driving, and I very much doubt that the inequality is anywhere near as big as the insurance companies and their stats would have you believe.

Xios

ha-ya-said-what wrote: »

It is how it is with the RTAs we get, reason being the women tend to have cars of a lesser value than males, in most cases cheaper just to sell for breaking, repair or replace rather than claim on the insurance.

I don't agree with you either, this can swing either way, my car is worth ****e all, so if i crash it, i ain't claiming for it to be repaired.

And i believe the biggest $$$ part of insurance claims is injury to others, not really the vehicles themselves.

Eoin

ha-ya-said-what wrote: »

It is how it is with the RTAs we get, reason being the women tend to have cars of a lesser value than males, in most cases cheaper just to sell for breaking, repair or replace rather than claim on the insurance.

That's different to saying how they "run off to daddy for a new car" or whatever. I'm not sure I agree with you, but I don't think it's as offensive a post as your first one.

Men can't complain about insurance companies discriminating against young males, and then make sweeping statements like yours.

Eoin

Xios wrote: »

Well no, if you have 70 males and 35 females insured, the odds are 2 to 1 for the for crashes to be male. Just because there's more of us, doesn't mean we have to pay twice as much.

That's not the same thing as you said earlier. If you have 35 males and 35 females, but the males do twice as much driving, then the males are a higher risk.

Viper_JB

R.O.R wrote: »

And why should I pay higher premiums for you and the OP? Is this communist Russia where car insures you?

Missing the op's point here - he's not suggesting that the entire ncb system be over written - the only difference this would make to your premiums would be to lower them as they'd be more inline with the female pricing and you lose the loading for being male.

Nice idea but it'll never happen women crash more but also slower so much less damage to claim on probably much fewer even claimed on - I'm not too sure driver deaths come into it, if a driver on 3rd party crashes into a wall and kills himself do the insurance company pay anything?

ha-ya-said-what

eoin wrote: »

That's different to saying how they "run off to daddy for a new car" or whatever. I'm not sure I agree with you, but I don't think it's as offensive a post as your first one.

Men can't complain about insurance companies discriminating against young males, and then make sweeping statements like yours.

Well I can't very well bring all my paper work of cars wrote off by young women to the insurance companies & say well this young one wrote off her car & never claimed.. nor did this one or this one, on the other hand here is the list of males ... by the way they all claimed.

I would in no way say women are better drivers than men cos I see first hand what they do & the wrecks they leave behind em, but at the end of the day the insurance companies stats are based on the amount of claims they get and what not & I can't see the prices changing anytime soon.

Sleepy

Doesn't it swing the other way later in life? I'm pretty sure I remember hearing before that a mid-forties male pays less for insurance than a female of the same age?

Eoin

ha-ya-said-what wrote: »

Well I can't very well bring all my paper work of cars wrote off by young women to the insurance companies & say well this young one wrote off her car & never claimed.. nor did this one or this one, on the other hand here is the list of males ... by the way they all claimed.

I didn't ask you to do that, I asked you not to make sweeping statements about women running to daddy or their partner to buy them a new car. Let's leave it at that please.

astrofool

This was brought to court a few years ago, and the case was dismissed.

However, if men drive more, and cause accidents resulting in higher payouts, then yes, they should pay more. If we stopped having these high payout accidents, premiums would fall.

Xios

Sleepy wrote: »

Doesn't it swing the other way later in life? I'm pretty sure I remember hearing before that a mid-forties male pays less for insurance than a female of the same age?

This will change in the next decade, the reason i believe this is true now is that 15-20 years ago there were much fewer female drivers, so all the middle aged women driving now are learning to drive at much later age while men have always started younger, of course this has changed now with many young girls getting cars. I may be wrong, but this is how i can make sense of it.

Eoin

Personally I would like to see what would happen if a different group of people had to pay higher premiums based on statistics. I do agree that young white males are the easiest to discriminate against without public uproar, but I don't find it hard to believe that they are the highest risks for insurance companies either.

Zubeneschamali

eoin wrote: »

I don't find it hard to believe that they are the highest risks for insurance companies either.

There's no doubt about it - just check the deaths vs. injuries for young men vs. young women. In 2008, age 21-24, dead/injured:

Men: 32/547 or 5.5%
Women: 9/448 2%

That doesn't mean it makes sense to allow insurance companies to discriminate against them, though.

Eoin

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

There's no doubt about it - just check the deaths vs. injuries for young men vs. young women. In 2008, age 21-24, dead/injured:

Men: 32/547 or 5.5%
Women: 9/448 2%

That doesn't mean it makes sense to allow insurance companies to discriminate against them, though.

Those stats don't mention the average cost of claims to the insurance company.

If the average cost per claim is higher for males, then I think it does make sense to charge a higher premium.

Cookie_Monster

But in health insurance the average cost of an OAP is much much higher than a young person but due to risk equalisation this is compensated for (somewhat)

Why is the same not done for motor insurance?

Henry Ford III

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

But in health insurance the average cost of an OAP is much much higher than a young person but due to risk equalisation this is compensated for (somewhat)

Why is the same not done for motor insurance?

"Community rating" doesn't apply to motor insurance.

Topper Harley

A friend of mine who used to work in an insurance company told me the statistics say that women are in more crashes but men are in more expensive crashes.

However, in my experience (of driving, not crashes) most aggressive drivers tend to be men in their 30's and women in their 20's. Obviously, this is not exclusive. A lot of young male drivers I see, are driving around in the smallest engined, cheap cars they can get, (probably so that they can afford the insurance), and they tend to be careful drivers (because they can't afford a crash). This experience is based mostly around Dublin and may be different elsewhere in the country. My point being that I think crash statistics will probably change over time to reflect this.

More importantly though, I was also told that if I put a woman/women as named drivers on my insurance (as a youngish male driver), my premium would come down, the reason being, in the eyes of the insurance company, sometimes there would be women driving my car, therefore I'd be driving it less.

I only got this information after I did my last renewal, so I can't guarantee that it works but I got it from a good source.

cadaliac

astrofool wrote: »

This was brought to court a few years ago, and the case was dismissed.

However, if men drive more, and cause accidents resulting in higher payouts, then yes, they should pay more. If we stopped having these high payout accidents, premiums would fall.

This is key - and I think the main reason for the loading of policy’s in our country.
It's never going to be easy for an 18 to 25 year old male in this country, but, it wouldn't be so crippling if the payouts (personal injury) weren’t so high in the first place.
As for the discrimination, I don't know. I hate stats but that is what the Ins. company is working off to get the figures.
More men drive more miles and hence more claims against men.
Don't get me wrong, I hate the Ins. company as much as anyone else, and I have paid huge sums of money in the past too, but I certainly do NOT want risk equalization.
Why should I, I have paid my dues already. I have already been "discriminated" against by being male and now I am old enough to get a cheap policy.

Mr.David

Personally I think its fair enough.

If we men are statistically more likely to claim we pay a higher premium. Why expect women to subsidise it?

What would be interesting is if they divided it across more lines than just sex.....for instance religion or hair colour! I mean, why not? All it requires is stats to back it up! Then lets take the risky gingers to town with their premiums!!

Zubeneschamali

Mr.David wrote: »

If we men are statistically more likely to claim we pay a higher premium. Why expect women to subsidise it?

Why bother with insurance? Dangerous drivers who crash should pay the whole cost, and us safe drivers will not subsidize them at all!

Cookie_Monster

Henry Ford III wrote: »

"Community rating" doesn't apply to motor insurance.

yeah I know I was asking why it doesn't...

Eoin

Topper Harley wrote: »

A lot of young male drivers I see, are driving around in the smallest engined, cheap cars they can get, (probably so that they can afford the insurance), and they tend to be careful drivers (because they can't afford a crash).

It has become much cheaper for young males to be insured on more powerful cars and at a much younger age, so I don't know if this is as true as it used to be.

Topper Harley wrote: »

More importantly though, I was also told that if I put a woman/women as named drivers on my insurance (as a youngish male driver), my premium would come down, the reason being, in the eyes of the insurance company, sometimes there would be women driving my car, therefore I'd be driving it less.

This can often help - and conversely my wife's insurance came down because I was on her policy. This was because I had a full license and she didn't, plus a longer NCB. I just mention this to show that it's not always about the gender.

Zubeneschamali wrote:

Why bother with insurance? Dangerous drivers who crash should pay the whole cost, and us safe drivers will not subsidize them at all!

I think this would just increase premiums across the board. Insurance doesn't really work if you only load people after a claim.

smash

eoin wrote: »

This can often help - and conversely my wife's insurance came down because I was on her policy. This was because I had a full license and she didn't, plus a longer NCB. I just mention this to show that it's not always about the gender.

On the other hand, a few years ago I had a full license and 2 years NCB - my other half had just got her provisional and I added her to my policy. My policy reduced for some reason... She had only passed her theory test ffs!

daveharnett

steve06 wrote: »

On the other hand, a few years ago I had a full license and 2 years NCB - my other half had just got her provisional and I added her to my policy. My policy reduced for some reason... She had only passed her theory test ffs!

The stats support the drop in price. Young guys with female named drivers make fewer/smaller claims.

I suspect the cause behind the stats is that young lads with other halves tend to calm down a bit. Either that or the OHs nag them into slowing down.

As to the original question, it's perfectly legal and perfectly fair. An insurance company quotes you a figure based on what they think you will cost them. If you don't agree, go to another insurer and see if they think differently.

daveharnett

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Why bother with insurance? Dangerous drivers who crash should pay the whole cost, and us safe drivers will not subsidize them at all!

You can't take money of people when they don't have it. A bad crash where multiple people have serious injuries requiring long term care can cost astronomical amounts of money. Sure, you could garnish the offenders wages for the rest of his life, but not if he's dead.

Zubeneschamali

So you're saying that the point of insurance is to spread the risk between risky drivers and less risky ones?