EU- Ageism & Insurance

shanered

Is there any legal protection on people being discriminated against purely because of their age in EU law.
Similar to the recent change in insurance policy regarding discrimination on the basis of gender, should there not be similar laws against ageism,
Such as a 40 year old with 1 years experiance driving would be quoted less than say a 27 year old with 5 years experiance.
Should insurance not be related to experiance and not, simple put age.

Adults are just big kids too ya know.

TalkToEU: John

shanered wrote: »

Is there any legal protection on people being discriminated against purely because of their age in EU law.
Similar to the recent change in insurance policy regarding discrimination on the basis of gender, should there not be similar laws against ageism,
Such as a 40 year old with 1 years experiance driving would be quoted less than say a 27 year old with 5 years experiance.
Should insurance not be related to experiance and not, simple put age.

Adults are just big kids too ya know.

Hi shanered

Currently, there is no legislation which protects people from being discriminated against on the grounds of age outside the workplace. There is a proposal for such a Directive http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52008PC0426:EN:NOT but this has some way to go to fruition.

Excerpt: The aim of this proposal is to implement the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation outside the labour market. It sets out a framework for the prohibition of discrimination on these grounds and establishes a uniform minimum level of protection within the European Union for people who have suffered such discrimination....

Irish law is much more developed in this area. The Equal Status Acts 2000-2008 provide protection against discrimination based on age and could apply in the insurance situations you refer to. However, the legislation does have some exceptions in relation to insurance so you should check your scenario against these. You may also wish to refer to the Equality Authority - www.equality.ie on the issue.

National law is where this issue would be dealt with for now. The EU proposal is still a long way off and it may end up significantly modified or toned down before it ever sees implementation.

Hope that helps.

shanered

Thats a great bit of information, more than I expected really. Many thanks for your help.
I though I would pursue this a little to see if I got anywhere.
I will follow your lead and question this specific issue with the Equality Authority.
Kind Regards!

TalkToEU: John

shanered wrote: »

Thats a great bit of information, more than I expected really. Many thanks for your help.
I though I would pursue this a little to see if I got anywhere.
I will follow your lead and question this specific issue with the Equality Authority.
Kind Regards!

Thanks for the question.

From reading through the proposal from the European Commission quoted above, it does mention age several times relating to the insurance industry. One can expect some fairly tough lobbying from the insurance industry to ensure amendments are made in relation age related discrimination.

EG :

The Commission received many complaints about discrimination in the insurance and banking sector. The use of age or disability by insurers and banks to assess the risk profile of customers does not necessarily represent discrimination: it depends on the product. The Commission will initiate a dialogue with the insurance and banking industry together with other relevant stakeholders to achieve a better common understanding of the areas where age or disability are relevant factors for the design and pricing of the products offered in these sectors.

A special rule is added for insurance and banking services, in recognition of the fact that age and disability can be an essential element of the assessment of risk for certain products, and therefore of price. If insurers are not allowed to take age and disability into account at all, the additional costs will have to be entirely borne by the rest of the "pool" of those insured, which would result in higher overall costs and lower availability of cover for consumers. The use of age and disability in the assessment of risk must be based on accurate data and statistics.

Actuarial and risk factors related to disability and to age are used in the provision of insurance, banking and other financial services. These should not be regarded as constituting discrimination where the factors are shown to be key factors for the assessment of risk.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2008:0426:FIN:EN:HTML

shanered

Thanks for that extra information, I was onto the Equality Autority of Ireland there and they said its absolutely free to take an issue with this legally, I just have to get a quote, which will be based on my age, then inform the insurance company that I will be bring them to the equality courts on the basis of age discrimination.
I was informed that it would take upto and possibly more than 2 years to happen.
The main reason is, is that although they could prove that statistically more young people are involved in car crashes, could it not be said that statistically those with less driving experiance crash more.
But another issue is, even if things can be proven statistacally, isn't that not equality if your painted with the same brush just because statistically......
Statistic could prove alot of things that wouldn't nessecerally apply to the whole group of which statistics are being used to assess.
I am sure you can see my issue, but OF COURSE, the banking and insurance sector have big lobbyists that have happened to be able to get away with discrimination due to statistics, the use of the term statistics, really gets under my skin, it is used as a weapon against equality where everybody is taken for their own merit, which in this case would be track record and experiance, rather than gender and age (Gender has now been sorted).
I think I may take this case on even though this being what it is, its going to be a major uphill battle, with alot of statistics, and me trying to give the philospical argument againt discrimination on the basis of statistics.
I understand everybody else's premiums would go up, but thats what must be done if we are to start treating everybody equally.

oscarBravo

shanered wrote: »

I understand everybody else's premiums would go up...

A happier outcome would be for incompetent drivers to be prevented from driving altogether, but that seems unlikely.