Insurance gender ruling from Europe

[marbleapple]

Any way, in my ideal world women would neither drive nor vote

 

Who let them vote!?!

[steady_dave]

I actually work for Aviva and we've been monitoring this for a few months now...here's our internal statement that went out yesterday:

 

"Today (1st March 2011), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that insurers will no longer be able to use a person’s gender as a factor in calculating the cost and benefits of their insurance.

 

There is a transition period before this change in law takes effect on 21 December 2012.

 

We will now work through the detail of this ruling and assess what this means for our customers. The impact will depend on each customers’ individual circumstances but given the transition period to 21 December 2012, there is no immediate change to customers’ current insurance cover with us

We will make changes to our systems so that we can provide unisex pricing for our customers in the EU as required by the ruling and make this transition as smooth as possible. Gender is only one of many rating factors that we use to assess a customer’s risk. We’ll continue to invest in ways to reflect differences in the risk that individuals bring, to ensure we can charge the most appropriate premium for each individual customer

Fundamentally, we believe that insurance remains good value and will continue to play a vital role in helping people to protect what they have today and to plan, invest and save for their futures

We already have experience of underwriting without taking gender into account (eg in our businesses in Italy, Ireland and France) – so our customers will benefit from the fact that we can share that expertise across Aviva."

[Purity14]

Any way, in my ideal world women would neither drive nor vote

 

But they would do dances, clap their hands, and make high pitched noises everytime they saw a rainbow or a cute animal.

So long as they could knuckle down to some bread making whilst I was out working - I agree entirely

[mawby]

In my opinion it is just another stupid ruling by Europe who seem to specialise in screwing things up. Of course insurance premiums should be based around risk. We wouldn't insurer a oil tanker for the same as a tug boat just because they are both boats. Speed, size, value, safety etc are all considered, why shouldn't sex of the driver be considered for cars?

Because speed, size, value and safely are all quantifiable attributes of the vehicle that the owner could change if desired. (i.e. if someone didn't want a higher premium then they could get the smaller tug boat, or the less powerful oil tanker, etc). And by quantifiable I mean it is possible to calculate that if a boat of x weight hit something at it's maximum speed of y then it would have z amount of energy behind the collision, and the more energy behind the collision then the more damage it would cause if it was to hit a harbour, for example. All facts which could be used to calculate a premium.

 

However, just because I am male doesn't actually mean I have more chance of having an accident then my wife. (In fact the statistics can be disproved in my case as we have both had one non-fault accident each). When using statistics you also have to consider every aspect of how the statistics were compiled. For example, I remember one of the very early "men have more car accidents than women" statistics being shown as being worthless because it took the simplified approach of "100 accidents, 40 women drivers and 60 male drivers" therefore men are more likely to have accidents. However, lets take this to the extreme and imagine that there were only 1000 drivers in total; 40 women and 960 men. Suddenly it becomes obvious that actually women are more likely to have a car accident because 100% of them have where as only 4% of male drivers did.

 

Statistics can never really be relied on and I'm glad this one is being removed from the calculation. If statistics showed that people with blue eyes had more accidents I'm sure they wouldn't be allowed to use that in the equation. Or sexual preference, the number of letters in your first name, your star sign. All of these could be shown by statistics to have a more likely/less likely chance of someone having a car accident, but hopefully most people can see the nonsense in using that information!

 

I'd much prefer to see a system that where everyone obtaining a quote for the same car, driving the same miles, in the same area, were all quoted exactly the same price until an individual had done something to warrant a price increase on their premium like being the cause of an accident or getting points on their license.

[JohnHandy]

Don't get me started on stupid insures idea of a "safe" driver being old or female!! Just because your not "technically at fault" dosn't mean your not a tit for the following:

 

1. Pulling out on a 60mph road 50 feet in fount of an on coming car and proceeding to do 10mph as you search for second gear and get hit from behind!!!

 

2. Stopping at a perfectly clear roundabout.

 

3. Stalling at the lights.

 

4.Joining a motorway at 30 mph!!

 

Not at fault dose not = safe driver :-/

 

Rant over.

[JohnHandy]

Because speed, size, value and safely are all quantifiable attributes of the vehicle that the owner could change if desired. (i.e. if someone didn't want a higher premium then they could get the smaller tug boat, or the less powerful oil tanker, etc). And by quantifiable I mean it is possible to calculate that if a boat of x weight hit something at it's maximum speed of y then it would have z amount of energy behind the collision, and the more energy behind the collision then the more damage it would cause if it was to hit a harbour, for example. All facts which could be used to calculate a premium.

 

However, just because I am male doesn't actually mean I have more chance of having an accident then my wife. (In fact the statistics can be disproved in my case as we have both had one non-fault accident each). When using statistics you also have to consider every aspect of how the statistics were compiled. For example, I remember one of the very early "men have more car accidents than women" statistics being shown as being worthless because it took the simplified approach of "100 accidents, 40 women drivers and 60 male drivers" therefore men are more likely to have accidents. However, lets take this to the extreme and imagine that there were only 1000 drivers in total; 40 women and 960 men. Suddenly it becomes obvious that actually women are more likely to have a car accident because 100% of them have where as only 4% of male drivers did.

 

Statistics can never really be relied on and I'm glad this one is being removed from the calculation. If statistics showed that people with blue eyes had more accidents I'm sure they wouldn't be allowed to use that in the equation. Or sexual preference, the number of letters in your first name, your star sign. All of these could be shown by statistics to have a more likely/less likely chance of someone having a car accident, but hopefully most people can see the nonsense in using that information!

 

I'd much prefer to see a system that where everyone obtaining a quote for the same car, driving the same miles, in the same area, were all quoted exactly the same price until an individual had done something to warrant a price increase on their premium like being the cause of an accident or getting points on their license.

 

Spot on

[Snooze]

However, just because I am male doesn't actually mean I have more chance of having an accident then my wife. (In fact the statistics can be disproved in my case as we have both had one non-fault accident each). When using statistics you also have to consider every aspect of how the statistics were compiled. For example, I remember one of the very early "men have more car accidents than women" statistics being shown as being worthless because it took the simplified approach of "100 accidents, 40 women drivers and 60 male drivers" therefore men are more likely to have accidents. However, lets take this to the extreme and imagine that there were only 1000 drivers in total; 40 women and 960 men. Suddenly it becomes obvious that actually women are more likely to have a car accident because 100% of them have where as only 4% of male drivers did.

 

How likely you are to have an accident doesn't really figure that much in an insurance company's equations, by the way. That is why "how likely a man vs a woman is to have an accident" is irrelevant.

 

The insurance companys only care about how much it will cost them if you have an accident when you are at fault. I would bet heavily that men-at-fault accidents cost considerably more than women-at-fault accidents.

Personally, from my observation, I believe that on average, woman have worse awareness when driving, a dangerous lack of confidence, a horrible lack of spacial awareness, a shocking lack of consideration for other drivers and are generally "worse drivers" on the whole.

However, I would still bet that men cause a lot more damage and therefore cost when they DO crash. Men drive too fast and too carelessly.

 

As has been mentioned, the insurance companies really are not idiots - they would never use statistics like "100 accidents, 40 women drivers and 60 male drivers" in their calculations. If they calculate their risk to include gender, you can bet they are using a damn unimaginably HUGE quantity of back-data to base this on - because it's THEIR money that they're putting at risk.

 

I'd much prefer to see a system that where everyone obtaining a quote for the same car, driving the same miles, in the same area, were all quoted exactly the same price until an individual had done something to warrant a price increase on their premium like being the cause of an accident or getting points on their license.

 

You do realise that this approach would essentially cause more mature drivers to essentially subsidise younger drivers? Under 20s insurance would come down by about 50% and everyone elses would go up by about 20%.

[mawby]

The insurance companys only care about how much it will cost them if you have an accident when you are at fault.

That can't be true, otherwise why did my premium go up when my car was written off despite it not being my fault and all costs being reclaimed from the 3rd party? But then I've always argued that non-fault accidents shouldn't be taken into consideration anyway.

 

As has been mentioned, the insurance companies really are not idiots

Of course not. If the statistics had fallen in favour of men then they would never have used it as an excuse for increasing women's premiums as they know it would have gone to court on day one and they'd be responsible for the countless house fires that resulted from husbands venturing into the kitchen unaided whilst their wifes were outside the courthouse burning bras!

[marbleapple]

However, just because I am male doesn't actually mean I have more chance of having an accident then my wife.

 

Like it or not, it does.

[snake]

Now i know why Blackie was asking how much a boob job was in a previous post. He was tying to get his premiums down ,but they must of got wind of his cunning plan.

[Snooze]

That can't be true, otherwise why did my premium go up when my car was written off despite it not being my fault and all costs being reclaimed from the 3rd party? But then I've always argued that non-fault accidents shouldn't be taken into consideration anyway.

 

Firstly; are you sure that your premium ONLY went up because of the accident, or could the market demographics and statistics have changed inbetween?

 

Secondly; yeah - the non-fault accident is an interesting one. Again - you'll almost definitely find that the statistics that the insurance companies are looking at imply that someone involved in a non-fault accident is more likely to be involved in a fault-accident in the future. Doesn't sound right to me, but I would be willing to bet that is what the statistics imply.

 

Also - don't forget that after the insurance company has cranked the handle on their big algorithm machine to calculate the basic premium, the last thing they do is add/subtract an amount for marketing reasons (if they are trying to either lose or target particular demographics, respecitively, for example).

And THEN they will add an amount on top of that for how much they think that YOU would be willing to pay right now. Over-charging on renewals, etc. That bit is the extra margin, and the reason that the price can come down if you haggle!

 

If the statistics had fallen in favour of men then they would never have used it as an excuse for increasing women's premiums as they know it would have gone to court on day one and they'd be responsible for the countless house fires that resulted from husbands venturing into the kitchen unaided whilst their wifes were outside the courthouse burning bras!

 

You might be on to something there! I wonder how they factor that into the equation!