Car Insurance no more gender-discrimination/sexism.

Tomk1

One that slipped under the radar, from the 21st December Insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate aganist >40 male drivers.

The court gave insurers until 21 December to bring in unisex rates, with the biggest impact expected in Britain, Spain and Ireland, where gender-based pricing is most commonly used.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct/05/car-insurance-women-rise-premiums-eu-ruling

Basically prices for under 40yr old males should decrease by a small amount and prices for females will increase to that rate.

All I can say is fair play, many male drivers have had to pay excessive insurance for decades due to sub-group clichè of "young-male-drivers". Even if some "young-male-drivers" usually described as high on "testosterone" are involved in higher rates of claims, it doesn't equate to being the responsibillity of all male divers, gender-typing making one gender accountable for the actions of a few of the same gender.

About time an end to this sexism,I know this could/will be a AH or GC topic but relates directly to the price of Insurance.

keithclancy

Tomk1 wrote: »

One that slipped under the radar, from the 21st December Insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate aganist >40 male drivers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct/05/car-insurance-women-rise-premiums-eu-ruling

Basically prices for under 40yr old males should decrease by a small amount and prices for females will increase to that rate.

All I can say is fair play, many male drivers have had to pay excessive insurance for decades due to sub-group clichè of "young-male-drivers". Even if some "young-male-drivers" usually described as high on "testosterone" are involved in higher rates of claims, it doesn't equate to being the responsibillity of all male divers, gender-typing making one gender accountable for the actions of a few of the same gender.

About time an end to this sexism,I know this could/will be a AH or GC topic but relates directly to the price of Insurance.

Me hole ... I bet insurance for women will just go up ... then both will go up due to the 'current climate' :pac::pac::pac:

paulmclaughlin

Tomk1 wrote: »

One that slipped under the radar, from the 21st December Insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate aganist >40 male drivers.

Oh really?

Tomk1

paulmclaughlin wrote: »

Oh really?

??

Youssef Chippo

Tomk1 wrote: »

??

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70929049

Tomk1

Tomk1 wrote: »

One that slipped under the radar, from the 21st December Insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate aganist >40 male drivers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct/05/car-insurance-women-rise-premiums-eu-ruling

Basically prices for under 40yr old males should decrease by a small amount and prices for females will increase to that rate.

All I can say is fair play, many male drivers have had to pay excessive insurance for decades due to sub-group clichè of "young-male-drivers". Even if some "young-male-drivers" usually described as high on "testosterone" are involved in higher rates of claims, it doesn't equate to being the responsibillity of all male divers, gender-typing making one gender accountable for the actions of a few of the same gender.

About time an end to this sexism,I know this could/will be a AH or GC topic but relates directly to the price of Insurance.

Its not really good news for anyone. Female drivers obviously are less risk, hence why they pay cheaper premiums, so this just means the average family will now pay more money out of their yearly budget because some men's rights group wanted to prove a point.

Not a chance mens policies will become cheaper, we haven't all of a sudden become safer drivers all of a sudden.

AugustusMinimus

Bella Thankful Chisel wrote: »

Its not really good news for anyone. Female drivers obviously are less risk, hence why they pay cheaper premiums, so this just means the average family will now pay more money out of their yearly budget because some men's rights group wanted to prove a point.

Not a chance mens policies will become cheaper, we haven't all of a sudden become safer drivers all of a sudden.

Why shouldn't mens policies become cheaper.

Insurance companies will aim to keep their turnover the same be slightly raising female prices and reducing male prices. If insurance company profits go up and male prices don't go down, then the government should simply look into insurance company practices.

This in my mind is completely correct. Insurance prices should be dictated by your actions in life, not what genitalia you are born with.

Every driver should start out on the same price. if you have an accident it goes up. If you have 6 years no claims bonus, it will go down. Simple as that.

challengemaster

Bella Thankful Chisel wrote: »

Female drivers obviously are less risk..

Ehhhhhhhhh.... right.

AugustusMinimus

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Why shouldn't mens policies become cheaper.

Insurance companies will aim to keep their turnover the same be slightly raising female prices and reducing male prices. If insurance company profits go up and male prices don't go down, then the government should simply look into insurance company practices.

This in my mind is completely correct. Insurance prices should be dictated by your actions in life, not what genitalia you are born with.

Every driver should start out on the same price. if you have an accident it goes up. If you have 6 years no claims bonus, it will go down. Simple as that.

Very naive view of big business practices imo.

All they have to argue is that mens policies were higher for a reason and they will stay the same price, why should they lower the price because women will pay more?

Say there is a mens only insurance company. If Aviva lowered the prices of mens insurance because of this and said mens only insurance company matched them, then it would probably make their business model unsustainable because men are more risky and the policies were set to reflect that.

This will affect womens policies, mens will remain unchanged imo.

challengemaster wrote: »

Ehhhhhhhhh.... right.

Why are men's policies more expensive then?

Is it for the laugh?
Its obviously because we make more claims.

AugustusMinimus

Bella Thankful Chisel wrote: »

Very naive view of big business practices imo.

All they have to argue is that mens policies were higher for a reason and they will stay the same price, why should they lower the price because women will pay more?

Say there is a mens only insurance company. If Aviva lowered the prices of mens insurance because of this and said mens only insurance company matched them, then it would probably make their business model unsustainable because men are more risky and the policies were set to reflect that.

This will affect womens policies, mens will remain unchanged imo.

If there's an efficient insurance market out there then prices will come down. Otherwise it would hint at price fixing between insurance companies which of course is illegal.

AugustusMinimus

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

If there's an efficient insurance market out there then prices will come down. Otherwise it would hint at price fixing between insurance companies which of course is illegal.

Pricing your policies to reflect the chances of a claim is not price fixing.

Will the actuarial models used to calculate risk now be disregarded and the policy prices just be a guess figure?

Because if mens policys do go down because of this, that is exactly what will have happened.

mahamageehad

My insurance has already gone up, I just renewed. I guess some companies are ahead of the trend

While I don't think it's fair that there's such a difference between male and female policies at a certain age, I don't think this new charge is fair either. The only people who will benefit from this are the insurance companies and possibly 17 year old boys who want to start driving.

I was quoted around €230 for insurance but near the end of the quote process they added something along the lines of "Statutory increase to meet minimum costings" bringing it up to over 400. This is not fair at all on us safe drivers that have never had an accident or claimed. Despite having an extra years no-claims bonus (bringing me up to 4) my insurance is more than last year and it looks like there is a minimum barrier I wont be able to go below despite any number of years no claims. Surely there's ageist discrimination going on there now rather than gender discrimination??

AugustusMinimus

Bella Thankful Chisel wrote: »

Pricing your policies to reflect the chances of a claim is not price fixing.

Will the actuarial models used to calculate risk now be disregarded and the policy prices just be a guess figure?

Because if mens policys do go down because of this, that is exactly what will have happened.

Actuaries have to use various factors in determining the cost of an insurance policy. I suspect that the gender variable will simply have to be dropped from the calculation.

If the insurance companies gender split is 50:50, then their total insurance proceeds will be exactly the same. However, this is unlikely to be the case. Hence, another part of the formula may need to be adjusted in order for the company to maintain a constant level of turnover.

As a male this won't affect me imo so I don't really care, however I take serious issue at women being charged more than they should going by their risk because of gender imbalance.

It opens a huge can of worms imo.
This could affect insurance companies insuring anything haulage to financial products because they can now use this example to charge whatever prices they want because in this example the price being charged does not equate to the risk of the policy being claimed on.

Its the complete antithesis of free market capitalism.

CiniO

No difference for me then.
My policy will go down, while my wife's policy will go up.

oldyouth

challengemaster wrote: »

Ehhhhhhhhh.... right.

He didn't say lady drivers were better, he said they were less risk. There is a world of difference in insurance terms

Bobo78

Good excuse for Insurance Companies to make even more profits :mad:

mahamageehad

CiniO wrote: »

No difference for me then.
My policy will go down, while my wife's policy will go up.

No, you see that's exactly the opposite of what will happen!

If they increase women's insurance by e.g. 20% then chances are that some women won't be able to drive anymore hence reducing the number of customers on the books thus reducing profits. In order to keep the same level of insurance mens premiums (therefore all premiums) will have to be increased slightly. It would make no sense for insurance companies to reduce mens premiums; they are still as big a risk as they were before.

Here's a really simple example that might explain that a bit better. Just say you have two couples the same age: Mary & Joe and Anne & John. The men are charged 500 each for the year, the women are charged 350. The insurance company makes 1,700. The fairest thing would be to divide it evenly and meet in the middle: charge everyone 425. But they can't reduce male premiums because they're based on a very delicate formula with many factors that indicate how likely a person is to claim. So they decide to charge everyone 500. Anne can't afford this 150 increase so she stops driving. Now the company are only making 1500: 200 less. In order to keep the same level of profits they need to charge the remaining three people 567 each.

So nobody wins

Cuddlesworth

Not going to happen. The cost base will equalize and men's will go down, women's will go up. You cant start charging everybody 500 because you feel like it. As a company, they have competitors that they compete with? You overcharge, you will lose business like any other market out there.

For the majority of people it will be the difference of about 40 Euro max either way. For the 18-25 market it will be huge difference. No more 400 Euros to put your daughter on as a named driver, but 3k to put your son on. And this might put a lot of young females off the road as it presents a huge cost hike.

BlatentCheek

Interesting attitudes on this. It seems like people trying to find economic arguments to justify discrimination. I suspect when much of the discrimination against women was being challenged in the 1970s and 1980s those on the conservative side of the debate employed similar arguments (and I don't mean to equate higher car insurance premiums with disgraces like the marital rape exception or the civil service maternity redundancy in case anyone gets offended). Equal treatment regardless of gender is something that's good in itself. In any case I noticed that the argument that prices would go up for everyone as a result of this was the blanket response from the industry when the ECJ judgment was issued about a year ago, they're hardly an objective dispassionate voice on this matter. People can try to do sums to analyze the outcome on this thread but the one's done by our insurance companies will almost certainly be more complex and probably less honest: how else can I live in the safest EU capital in which to drive and yet pay amongst the highest premiums?
I'm just happy that it's no longer OK to discriminate against me on the basis of my gender and I'm taking to heart the lesson that the state institutions of my own country had no interest whatsoever in vindicating my rights on this matter.

tritium

Bella Thankful Chisel wrote: »

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

If there's an efficient insurance market out there then prices will come down. Otherwise it would hint at price fixing between insurance companies which of course is illegal.

Pricing your policies to reflect the chances of a claim is not price fixing.

Will the actuarial models used to calculate risk now be disregarded and the policy prices just be a guess figure?

Because if mens policys do go down because of this, that is exactly what will have happened.

Actually the exact opposite us true since the risk component due to a gender factor will be absent. Presumably some other factor will be added to the models to reflect the riskier cohort of " some young males"

CiniO

mahamageehad wrote: »

No, you see that's exactly the opposite of what will happen!

If they increase women's insurance by e.g. 20% then chances are that some women won't be able to drive anymore hence reducing the number of customers on the books thus reducing profits. In order to keep the same level of insurance mens premiums (therefore all premiums) will have to be increased slightly. It would make no sense for insurance companies to reduce mens premiums; they are still as big a risk as they were before.

Here's a really simple example that might explain that a bit better. Just say you have two couples the same age: Mary & Joe and Anne & John. The men are charged 500 each for the year, the women are charged 350. The insurance company makes 1,700. The fairest thing would be to divide it evenly and meet in the middle: charge everyone 425. But they can't reduce male premiums because they're based on a very delicate formula with many factors that indicate how likely a person is to claim. So they decide to charge everyone 500. Anne can't afford this 150 increase so she stops driving. Now the company are only making 1500: 200 less. In order to keep the same level of profits they need to charge the remaining three people 567 each.

So nobody wins

I really hope you are wrong here, but time will tell.

tritium

Bella Thankful Chisel wrote: »

As a male this won't affect me imo so I don't really care, however I take serious issue at women being charged more than they should going by their risk because of gender imbalance.

It opens a huge can of worms imo.
This could affect insurance companies insuring anything haulage to financial products because they can now use this example to charge whatever prices they want because in this example the price being charged does not equate to the risk of the policy being claimed on.

Its the complete antithesis of free market capitalism.

Risk models have nothing to do with free markets and capitalism, pricing and competition are what achieves that

Cuddlesworth

tritium wrote: »

Actually the exact opposite us true since the risk component due to a gender factor will be absent. Presumably some other factor will be added to the models to reflect the riskier cohort of " some young males"

Its unlikely to happen. They could try it by name, male names carrying higher risk overall in comparison to females. But you would just be asking for a court case to try justify why it isn't gender specific.

tritium

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

tritium wrote: »

Actually the exact opposite us true since the risk component due to a gender factor will be absent. Presumably some other factor will be added to the models to reflect the riskier cohort of " some young males"

Its unlikely to happen. They could try it by name, male names carrying higher risk overall in comparison to females. But you would just be asking for a court case to try justify why it isn't gender specific.

That would still fall foul of the rule since names would be pretty obvious way of just adding gender by stealth. More likely that a couple of crude proxy factors that are fairly correlated with "young male boy racer" would be added or reweighted in the models, something like " years driving" and "engine size" I guess

Cuddlesworth

tritium wrote: »

That would still fall foul of the rule since names would be pretty obvious way of just adding gender by stealth. More likely that a couple of crude proxy factors that are fairly correlated with "young male boy racer" would be added or reweighted in the models, something like " years driving" and "engine size" I guess

They are already calculated risks so it can't make any difference against cost equalization.

The only difference I could see arising out of this is insurance company's refusing to insure males and specifically targeting females only. Since the company with more females on the books is in a better position overall to complete on cost then one with primarily males who won't be able to offer competitive rates.

Kwack

I'm driving since I was 18, have NEVER crashed, have a 10 years no claims bonus, drive a 02 focus yet pay more for insurance than my 24 year old sister who has several claims and drives a 06 a4?? Whatever reason some people are trying to justify it, it's gender discrimination. As someone above said people should pay the same and only if they crash should they pay more. Someone else above said that it could put younger women off driving but if young fellas are forced to pay 2k or more insurance at present them surely it means more young fellas will be able to afford insurance. Not all fellas are idiots behind the wheel and not all women are angels!

tritium

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

They are already calculated risks so it can't make any difference against cost equalization.

The only difference I could see arising out of this is insurance company's refusing to insure males and specifically targeting females only. Since the company with more females on the books is in a better position overall to complete on cost then one with primarily males who won't be able to offer competitive rates.

Actually they can, because the weight given to the factor can be changed so it is more/ less influential. Alternatively other factors can be incorporated into the models to improve the accuracy.

I'd Also note that realistically no company can afford to forsake 50% of their Market. When you combine that with online quoting it becomes pretty difficult to not quote males

Cuddlesworth

Kwack wrote: »

I'm driving since I was 18, have NEVER crashed, have a 10 years no claims bonus, drive a 02 focus yet pay more for insurance than my 24 year old sister who has several claims and drives a 06 a4?? Whatever reason some people are trying to justify it, it's gender discrimination. As someone above said people should pay the same and only if they crash should they pay more. Someone else above said that it could put younger women off driving but if young fellas are forced to pay 2k or more insurance at present them surely it means more young fellas will be able to afford insurance. Not all fellas are idiots behind the wheel and not all women are angels!

Risk equalization. Its not personal, they are not going out of their way to screw you over. Your NCB is a factor against your increased risk but it doesn't make it go away.

Men drive more miles, over longer distances for longer duration's per trip at a much higher speed. When they do crash, the cost of the damage done is significantly higher than female accidents. Even if women have higher accident rates per mile, it doesn't change the fact that to insure males is more expensive over all age ranges. If it was actually viable to insure young males, there would be a company right now insuring them for half the cost and raking in the money.

/rant over

Cuddlesworth

tritium wrote: »

Actually they can, because the weight given to the factor can be changed so it is more/ less influential. Alternatively other factors can be incorporated into the models to improve the accuracy.

I see what your saying, if young males primarily drive 1.2 Fiestas, then drive up the cost of the Fiesta and drive down the cost of a largely female owned group of cars. The issue with that is car choice at young age is dictated by insurance cost, any low cost insurance on a car type will attract young males regardless of car type. And its still a gender neutral issue.

Kwack

For example let's say a senior position opens up and a male and female are going for it. Would the female find it acceptable if the position went to the male seeing as on average males work till a longer age than females and don't take maternity leave. My arse she would! The case would be up in court. Whatever way you spin it we either have gender equality or not and you can't discriminate against someone just because they have a penis

marcus2000

I think the initial changes to premiums could possibly be substantial and pretty inconsistent across the board as Insurers try get to grips with the effects of the premium changes on the size/makeup of their book.

If anything, this whole process will encourage policyholders to shop around more than before, and if one insurer rebalances it's loadings differently to another, it could lose out big time. From what I can tell, there seems to be very little confidence from the insurers on what exactly will happen. I have spoken to a few companies and they all seem a bit vague about what effects this will have. Generally though, average premiums are to rise. Apparently, they are too low!!!!

Mine isn't too low....I hope I get a big discount!!!!

Voodoomelon

Nice one, my policy is up in January.

tritium

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

tritium wrote: »

Actually they can, because the weight given to the factor can be changed so it is more/ less influential. Alternatively other factors can be incorporated into the models to improve the accuracy.

I see what your saying, if young males primarily drive 1.2 Fiestas, then drive up the cost of the Fiesta and drive down the cost of a largely female owned group of cars. The issue with that is car choice at young age is dictated by insurance cost, any low cost insurance on a car type will attract young males regardless of car type. And its still a gender neutral issue.

Sort of. When you take big catch all binary factors like gender out of risk models it's often better just to reoptimise the model completely, although time and data tend to be issues. I kind of think that insurance companies are playing this card a bit harder than is warranted tbh, since we've had gender neutral risk pricing in other walks of life and geographies for ears now

Triangle

I'd imagine we're about to start seeing occupation specific policies

i.e. Nurse Policies, Housecleaner Policies, creche worker policies......
and nothing for the male occupations.



They might have been wiser to being in a better education system into the way driving is taught in Ireland or restrict driving to an older age group.

Nikkio237

I've always hated the idea that insurance is gender discriminatory, but it was a big ouch to my pocket to get to 5 years no claims and then have my premium go up instead of going down! From a moralistic point of view, I can completely understand. And I guess I can understand the companies wanting to ensure their profit margins remain the same. But it does just smack of the same old rip offs; you can't choose not to have insurance, so the companies are just going to hit women. When I first heard the suggestion I thought "Great, my brother will be able to get a better deal starting out!". Now it looks like it's only marginally going to benefit him (3-5% drop), while my hike is 16.5%.

Looks like I'll be shopping around, but I can't imagine there's going to be much discrepancy between policies right now...

sebastianlieken

Bella Thankful Chisel wrote: »

Female drivers obviously are less risk.

I would Love to see the actual statistics of this. It's always quoted by insurers but the empirical evidence is nowhere to be found.

Both my mum and my sister have written off a car each. My dad and myself? nada. Yet now that I went to get an insurance quote last month, I faced massive premiums due to the niche group of boy racers out there who set a bad image for ALL young male drivers.

Solution; I've went with an insurer that fitted a black box to my car. (fitted this morning actually), This way I can empirically prove that I am not a boy racer and have my premium based on my actual driving rather than my preconcieved boy racer, orst case scenario driving.

dr.fuzzenstein

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Why shouldn't mens policies become cheaper.

Insurance companies will aim to keep their turnover the same be slightly raising female prices and reducing male prices. If insurance company profits go up and male prices don't go down, then the government should simply look into insurance company practices.

This in my mind is completely correct. Insurance prices should be dictated by your actions in life, not what genitalia you are born with.

Every driver should start out on the same price. if you have an accident it goes up. If you have 6 years no claims bonus, it will go down. Simple as that.

Two points:

1: If the situation where reversed (women paid more), you can be sure that would be the FIRST thing written in 6 foot high letters on the banners of the countless protest marches

and

2: I'm sure some feminists are right now spitting blood and acid on how you DARE use that one against hem!:D

The rest of your argument:

It is simple, well thought out, flawlessly logical and therefore very likely to be condemned by all sides, since people mistrust logic and reason. We have always solved things by jumping on the next barricade and waving a flag against those other bastards on that barricade over there, we don't need any of your reason and logic, thankyou very much! Throwing things and name calling was good enough for me da', and it's good enough for me!:p
For those reasons intelligence has never solved anything, only those who shout the loudest and have the most pull will get results.

tritium

tritium wrote: »

Risk models have nothing to do with free markets and capitalism, pricing and competition are what achieves that

If you abandon the risk model you are creating a price which is not in line with what the market would dictate naturally, you are simply making up a price not taking into account any economical factors.

marcus2000

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

1: If the situation where reversed (women paid more)

The situation is almost reversed when it comes to some pensions. All insurance products have to comply with gender equalisation. Females are currently expected to live longer than males and as a result they receive a smaller payout periodically (Annuity). With the directive, and the removal of sex discrimination, the payouts will be equal and thus females will receive an increase (and most likely a decrease for males).

Voodoomelon

There's an ad on the radio at the moment still offering women "fantastic" deals on car insurance. I expect to see these on the increase right up til January.

mahamageehad

I'm sorry to quote you voodoomelon but as I was reading through the thread this is the ad directly under your post!

arnelv

The funny thing for insurance claims, the cost doesn't go down as fast the market value of your car.

chrislad

Just checked today so I have a comparison

664 for me with 5 years license, 5 years no claims, no penalty points, 2004 Peugout 307 Diesel 1.6

446 if I'm female. Same criteria.

Can't wait to see what they do in a few weeks time.