Is it sexist for the insurance industry to take gender into account when setting its premiums?

[Lio]

You've probably seen article like this one in the last few days, talking about how women could find insurance premiums (particularly car insurance) going up if the EU rules it discriminatory to take gender into account when setting its premiums.

A friend has asked whether this is discrimination against men, or just sound business sense? I've always thought the latter, given that the stastistics show that women have fewer car accidents and less spectacular ones than men. But if someone is told that the reason their premium is higher because they're a man, isn't that sexist?

I know there are other issues involved, such as age, but what do you think about the gender one?

Judging by the fact that two hours after this question has been posted and no feminist has yet tried to claim it isn't sexist shows that it is clearly sexist.

While I have no doubt that this does probably make business sense, so does charging a working woman a higher tax rate than a working male who earns the same amount of money to alleviate the public money burden of longer female parental leave. The reason this isn't done is because a business decision in matters like this doesn't take precedence over sexism

Insurance companies also base their premiums on age - will that be assessed also?

Insurance companies base their premiums on assessment of risk and likelihood of paying out.

It's not "sexist" any more than it's "ageist". It's based on risk which is calculated using real data.

So when something favours women its good business sense but when it favours men its patriarchy?

The problem with equality (its not really a problem I'm just proving a point) is that once you start where do you stop.

The problem with statistics - along the lines to lies, damn lies and statistics is you can make then say anything you want to.

I work with them all day and there are very general ones. i.e. "you are more likley to crash a car than a sheep is". Partly becuase sheep don't drive cars.

There is also the ever popular men crash more cars than women. Which again is probably true.

However what about a 35 year old male currently a dsa examiner vs 35 year old single mum.

Now the specifics are not important but there will be some subsets out there where men are safer than the equivalent womens sub set or women in general. so in this point is it good to say you belong to the sub set of safe driving group (i.e. 35, driving examiner etc) but also to part of a main group (male). Which do you believe?

In any case the whole insurance system is a joke. I used to know someone who left ex girlfriends on his cars policy (wierd, but money saving). At one point he had 7 on there. Because it reduced his policy down from £1000 to £300. Nothing in the policy said they had to drive the car, just that they were insured if they wanted to.

I personally believe in ultimate equality, no discrimination at all based on gender, race, sex etc in anything. Which brings me back to the equality line and where do you stop once started.

Right, so by your reckoning, I should paying the same premium as a 19 year old boy - if you wish to eradicate all "discrimination"?

I thought the women thing was on risk status? If that is true then it's no more a result of planned bias than age, address, type of car, career........

I wonder if nowadays car insurance couldn't be done on a totally individual basis, based on a persons track record. Each newly insured person would start on a high premium (as indeed they already do) and then go up or down based on accidents and speeding convictions. (as already to a large extent happens). I understand why statistically averaged risks are used for other forms of insurance but less so for car insurance TBH.

I thought it was based on people who drive their cars less, who have fewer collisions because they drive less and have less experience in driving. This equates to women (who statistically drive less because they work less and most cars are driven for work purposes).

Its all about risk assesments that the insurance bains carry out. Its a business fact that they are less likely to have to pay out to women. Not sexist.

The adverts however - particularly that Sheila's wheels bollocks - all pink and fluffy are poticularly vomitous and are definitely sexist.

But what advert isn't??????

Don't get me started......

I hope that insurance indusry premiums are based on facts

It is fact that women are safer drivers

it is fact that women live longer

it is fact that men suffer more from certain serious diseases

inflating premiums in a false attempt to make them equal between men and women for a silly reason..is just that, silly

insurance brains even.

Oh, and particularly

if we buy into this silly idea, we are basically accepting that it is ok for insurance companies to rip us off even more

I doubt that they will want to reduce men's premiums

"The comparison to maternity leave is facile and ignorant."

How so? (and I would like to point out I'm not a feminist, therefore simply criticizing a point, not because it was wrong, but on the basis that it doesn't suit your ideology, won't wash with me)

Insurance companies discriminate on many factors. It is how insurance works. They look at the information they have and set their criteria accordingly.

So people pay more or less insurance depending on:

• gender
• age
• where they live
• the car they drive
• where they park their car
• if they use their car for business or not

etc.

I don't think it is sexist to include gender in this.

Well, we win on the car insurance but lose out on pension annuities, because on average we live longer.

How can any one not be a feminist? I'm sorry to pick on you im22 but what do you mean...? Do you not beleive in women being empowered or treated as equals? I'm sorry, I don't understand.

massive derailing, sorry!

It doesn't feel like sexism to me, but I can see that it can be presented as such.

From personal experience age has played a much bigger factor than gender in reducing our insurance premiums. Once DH and I were over 35 the insurance premiums plummetted. As DH is older than me it used to be cheaper for me to have him on my insurance than it was without - so it can work both ways Grevling.

"How can any one not be a feminist? I'm sorry to pick on you im22 but what do you mean...? Do you not beleive in women being empowered or treated as equals? I'm sorry, I don't understand.

massive derailing, sorry!"

I was pointing out that it is not sexist if gender is used to discriminate against men, but i guarantee you it would be if women were charged a higher tax rate, for example, because they use NHS more, state recieve pensions for longer, spend less of their lives in the workforce etc.

As for the equals bit - you should look the word up, you are eithe equal or your not. You can not pick and choose when your equal, you either say women cost car insurance agencies less therefore they should pay less and, since we're equals, women should pay higher national insurance rates since they receive more money from the state

"Shall we all guess where im22 came to visit us from?"

?? I don't understand your question, but I don't really care.

Yet again you can not come up with an argument to defend your position so you resort to ignoring the point and criticizing the person making it

I disagree im22 But then, I have a feeling you knew I would!

Do women receive more from the state? I mean, you may be right. But I don't think I've ever seen that as a fact. If it is true, there are many many reasons behind it which are too involved to debate at half 10 on a Tuesday night... Most of which aren't their fault.

Its discrimination based on gender stereotyping that we normally don't tolerate. Should we excuse this because the stereotype can be shown to be statistically accurate?

Seems to be the majority view, but I'm not so sure like where such an excuse might lead to.

Seems to me that this is a case where notions of "equality" and "fairness" collide.

It's not sexist because it is purely based on the statistics (although the judge ruling on the case made the decision she did because they couldn't prove that there were no other underlying factors and gender was the only rating factor).

This won't only affect car insurance. Annuities for men will be lower despite the fact the women live longer than men.

All the ruling has done is to make insurance of any kind more expensive, as insurance companies are unlikely to reduce premiums fir the affected sex, which the judge herself admitted.