EU Gender Directive

[mrmr96]

daz3210 said:

I cannot for the life in me think how a risk based industry can have such legislation forced upon it.

If women have less accidents, the risk is less, so it follows insurance ought to be cheaper.

But it's not really "fair" to risk profile people based on characteristics which they have no control over.

You can't control your (birth) gender.
You can't control your age.
You can't control your ethnicity.

If we think charging women less and men more is acceptable, then how about if the stats showed that certain ethnic demographics had a greater or lesser propensity for insurance claims. Would pricing based on ethnicity be acceptable?

To me, all three factors above are not in my control and I don't think it's fair to tar us all with the same brush for characteristics which can't be controlled.

By all means, charge me more or less based on where I live, what I drive, how many miles I do, what qualifications (driving) I hold etc, as I can control those things. But not on things out of my control. I accept that it may be statistically significant, but I don't see it as 'fair' to the consumer.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

mrmr96 said:

But it's not really "fair" to risk profile people based on characteristics which they have no control over.

You can't control your (birth) gender.
You can't control your age.
You can't control your ethnicity.

So according to this thinking, an 80 y/o should pay the same for life insurance as a 20 y/o. After all, it's not his fault he's 80.

And if you have cancer, you should pay the same for life insurance than someone who hasn't. It's not fair to charge someone extra for having a serious illness.

Insurance should never be about what is fair. Premium should be based on your chances of making a claim on the policy.

[streaky]

Papa Hotel said:

Even as a bloke I think it's stupid.

What's next? Ageism, where they can't discriminate against a 17 year old and have him pay the same as a 47 year old who has been driving 30 years?

Well, consider the suggestions to set quotas for female directors. How long before someone demands a quota for disabled, homosexuals (of either sex), who are 'of colour'?

Streaky

[mrmr96]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

mrmr96 said:

But it's not really "fair" to risk profile people based on characteristics which they have no control over.

You can't control your (birth) gender.
You can't control your age.
You can't control your ethnicity.

So according to this thinking, an 80 y/o should pay the same for life insurance as a 20 y/o. After all, it's not his fault he's 80.

And if you have cancer, you should pay the same for life insurance than someone who hasn't. It's not fair to charge someone extra for having a serious illness.

Insurance should never be about what is fair. Premium should be based on your chances of making a claim on the policy.

And according to your thinking it would be OK to charge an Asian man and a White British Man different amounts, all other things being equal? Purely based on their race?

Insurance SHOULD be about "what is fair", and you agree with me on this. It's just that you and I have different definitions of "fair". You think premiums based on risk profiles, regardless of control of circumstances, is fair. I think premiums based on risk profiles, only including controllable elements, is fair.

[RtdRacer]

Rovinghawk said:

Women are either equal or they're not- they can't be equal in just a few selected circumstances.

RH

SOrry, but that just doesn't fly. Woman and men are different in many, many ways. And equal in many ways.

Women have higher pain tolerance thresholds as men.
Men have higher physical strength than women.
IQ seems to be equal.
Women are more risk averse drivers than men.
Men are heavier than women.
Women have longer life expectancies.


The list goes on and on and on...

[barker22]

mrmr96 said:

But it's not really "fair" to risk profile people based on characteristics which they have no control over.

You can't control your (birth) gender.
You can't control your age.
You can't control your ethnicity.

I don't agree with the age one. Whilst you are right people can't control their age. They can control the age at which they choose to drive and seek insurance.

[Happy82]

Mill Wheel said:

Have you noticed... after drinking, MEN talk unnecessarily;
Become emotional;
Drive badly;
Stop thinking;
and argue over nothing

Women seem to do all of those things without drinking - yet still got better insurance rates!

[Andehh]

Insurance companies will be over the moon over this. Forced to raise women's premiums, yet claim to be unable reduce men's because they are still a higher risk....It's a ticket to print money for them effectively!


I utterly detest positive discrimination, like forcing all companies to have 40% of their executive staff be female (something like that), but when it comes to risk situations like this I see it perfectly reasonable to expect men to pay more. Statistics don't lie...

[mrmr96]

barker22 said:

mrmr96 said:

But it's not really "fair" to risk profile people based on characteristics which they have no control over.

You can't control your (birth) gender.
You can't control your age.
You can't control your ethnicity.

I don't agree with the age one. Whilst you are right people can't control their age. They can control the age at which they choose to drive and seek insurance.

I can't control my age, can you?

I don't think I'd argue against a policy where risk was priced based on number of years you've held your license, since that can be controlled to an extent.

[clarkey328is]

Greengecko said:

So, based upon this, you also believe insurance should be based on ethnicity? Religious beliefs? etc etc?

I do agree there is a fine line between what insurers can and can't use though; but can see both sides of the argument in this situation, after all women strive for equality and now they have achieved that in terms of car insurance.

Never tried to drive in London then?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Andehh said:

yet claim to be unable reduce men's because they are still a higher risk

That will be illegal from 21 Dec. it doesn't matter if men are a higher risk, you can't charge extra for them being men.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

mrmr96 said:

And according to your thinking it would be OK to charge an Asian man and a White British Man different amounts, all other things being equal? Purely based on their race?

Firstly, there is no evidence to support a differential in the rate between thsoe categories. And how would insurers know anyway, because they don't know what colour you are! So you're talking tripe.

[Mill Wheel]

Happy82 said:

Mill Wheel said:

Have you noticed... after drinking, MEN talk unnecessarily;
Become emotional;
Drive badly;
Stop thinking;
and argue over nothing

Women seem to do all of those things without drinking - yet still got better insurance rates!

I take it you are married, you live in Hants and your handle is still HAPPY82?
Is that the last time you were happy by any chance?

I was from Hants too!

Insurance is like gambling on the horses.
You pay a premium, and if something goes wrong your horse wins and you get paid out.
If you don't have an accident you lose your stake.
Where it differs is if your horse wins, the booky doesn't turn around and say "The jockey had athletes foot, so we are not paying out!"

[mrmr96]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

mrmr96 said:

And according to your thinking it would be OK to charge an Asian man and a White British Man different amounts, all other things being equal? Purely based on their race?

Firstly, there is no evidence to support a differential in the rate between thsoe categories. And how would insurers know anyway, because they don't know what colour you are! So you're talking tripe.

I'm not talking tripe at all. The only reason insurers ask your age and gender is to price policies and to build up evidence to support differentials. So it would be trivially easy for them to collect ethnicity statistics and then do differential pricing.

However you've neatly sidestepped the ethical question in favour of one about practicalities.

Please address my actual point: Would differential pricing based SOLEY on Ethnicity be ok, do you think?
(This is analogous to the current situation where a guy and girl could have identical circumstances, but differential prices.)

[Starfighter]

Those would only be a factor in the actuarial risk could be proven to differentiat on this factor alone. In the case of ethnicity there is no data that can support this and therefore the proposal is wrong.

The is proven evidence that gender and age (as separated from experience) have an influence on the likelyhood and severity of a claim. This is the proven bases that a male pays more than and equivalent female and a yonnger person pays more than and equivalent older person. in both cases age and gender matter in determining risk. There is supporting psychological evidence for this in terms of attitude to risk and other factors such as spacial awareness.

The change is just wrong. Same applies to the life assurance changes that are linked to the other side of the same coin. The actuarial risk is different.

Edited by Starfighter on Thursday 15th November 13:50

[Zeeky]

Statistically women are more likely than men to give up work after having children. Should that statistical evidence justify women being disadvantaged in the labour market because they might have children?

Edited by Zeeky on Wednesday 14th November 21:58

[TwigtheWonderkid]

mrmr96 said:

Please address my actual point: Would differential pricing based SOLEY on Ethnicity be ok, do you think?

It's a completely nonsense question, because there is no evidence, and would never be any evidence for this. It's like asking should insurers charge more for people who are called Gerald?

If there were some know genetic variable between the races that effected their ability to drive, say Caucasians had slower reactions, or Asians had very poor eyesight, then yes, I would support that. I'm sure the disadvantaged group would support it to, as they would know it was factual. But such variations don't exist.

I expect to pay more for my life insurance than someone half my age. I'm more likely to die. It's not my fault, it isn't fair, but it's a fact. I can't deny it. I'm also less likely to crash my car than someone half my age. But more likely to that a woman of the same age. These are facts. Your example of racial profiling in insurance is just made up tosh.

[Zeeky]

The Directive does not prohibit gender discrimination based on biological differences between men and women. It prohibits the use of statistics to discriminate. If insurers can prove that a woman is less risk because she is a woman then discrimination can be justified.

[Papa Hotel]

JQ said:

Papa Hotel said:

Even as a bloke I think it's stupid.

What's next? Ageism, where they can't discriminate against a 17 year old and have him pay the same as a 47 year old who has been driving 30 years?

Far more likely that we'd all end up paying the insurance premiums of a 17yrs old.

Sorry, that's what I meant to say.

[simoid]

Papa Hotel said:

daz3210 said:

Isn't paying monthly effectively borrowing money?

I wouldn't say it particularly is in the case of insurance.

Tis, I pay £550 now or £50 per month for the next year, for example.

Think of it as the insurance company paying your £500 premium now, and you pay them back with interest over the next 12 months