EU Insurance Ruling

[Mark]

The EU has ruled that insurance companies can no longer discriminate on gender when selling insurance products.

The most obvious effect of this will be on car insurance, which traditionally men always pay significantly more than women.

The rules are due to take effect in December 2012.

[Daniel]

Silly. Men should pay more for insurance than men. It typically men who have the accidents where people are getting scraped up off the road and women tend to have fender benders....

[GridGirl]

I renewed my car insurance today infact and it had gone up quite significantly. Based on this, I'm not sure if I want to think about what my insurance premium will be on 1st March 2013.

Are insurance companies still going to be able to discriminate on age?

[Daniel]

I renewed my car insurance today infact and it had gone up quite significantly. Based on this, I'm not sure if I want to think about what my insurance premium will be on 1st March 2013.

Are insurance companies still going to be able to discriminate on age?

That would be ageist! Can't have that now can we?

[Mark]

Might as well just have a situation where an insurance company charges one premium regardless of anything. Would make price comparison very easy at least!

[GridGirl]

Well I can't really see Saga wanting to sell insurance to a 17 year old but we can't have ageism in this day and age.

[Rollo]

One of my friends who is an actuary for NRMA Insurance (National Roads and Motorists' Association) has said that over the course of a driver's lifetime, the total value that the average female driver does to motor vehicles is more than the average male driver. The spike occurs because the average female driver is likely to have more accidents and all of them individually are of lesser value.
I suspect that the average male driver is more likely to cause injury to persons and therefore rack up higher medical bills because although they have less accidents, they're more likely to be more severe when they happen.

This ruling flies in the face of statistics and such defies proper cost analysis.

[Daniel]

I suspect that the average male driver is more likely to cause injury to persons and therefore rack up higher medical bills because although they have less accidents, they're more likely to be more severe when they happen.

My thoughts too. Whilst perhaps it's silly for me to feel that I should pay more for insurance, whenever you see fatal accidents on the news both here and back in Perth, the driver was usually a male......

[Mark]

Also male drivers on average tend to do twice the mileage of a comparable female driver, and at different times of day, usually when the roads are busier.
There's a strong correlation between the amount you drive and the amount of accidents you have.

I suspect there will be increased focus on the amount of miles you do and more measures to enforce mileage restrictions.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Personally, I have never felt any injustice because I have to pay more than women for car insurance.

However, the cost of insurance for young men is ridiculous and is probably part of the reason why the number of uninsured drivers is rising, which in turn rises costs further. Anything that reduces the cost for men could result in less 'fronting' and uninsured drivers.

Interestingly, in a family that has one girl and 3 boys, my sister is beating the boys 4-1 when in comes to car crashes. I still think it's is unfair that I would have to pay, probably double what my sister does, when I have 4 years no-claims and she has had 4 crashes in 10 years. (I know that contradicts my first sentence)