Surely insurance is about risk analysis, and if (statistically at least!) a woman is less likely to claim, then an insurance company should be free to use gender to help set the premium they wish to charge?
If not, as is indicated below, then surely another law will be needed to stop ageism being one of the factors used when setting a premium, too!
Hopefully, the article reports nothing more than tittle tattle, but somehow, I doubt it.
www.whatcar.com/default.asp?a=news&b=story&makeref...8
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"if (statistically at least!) a woman is less likely to claim"
Not sure of that - I thought they cost insurance companies less
(maybe even more claims, but of the low-speed variety)
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In some respects they cost companies more. They have more claims which cost more to administer than one claim if the overall values are the same for a females small crashes and a blokes big crash.
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True, but presumably until a typical bloke has his big crash, he has a huge wad of no claims that reduces his premium. Thus premiums for a woman with three years' NCB will be lower than those for a guy with the same NCB, because she is likely to be in a smaller proportion of the population who makes it that long without a claim.
Of course, the big point is IF THE OVERALL VALUES ARE THE SAME which is not what TrevorP was suggesting.
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what about different premiums for diffrerent ages ? surely ageist ?
What about different premiums for foreign nationsl ? surely racist ?
Surely it is disciminatory to set premiums by the area where people live, by their occupation, etc. etc.
Absolutely ridiculous.
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This bit of legislation is cretinous to put it mildly. Insurance is risk based women are lower risk thus would have lower premiums (like for like with a male in same area, history and age).
I've nothing against that at all it's how insurance should be done. You live in a low risk area you pay less, you drive a tortoise then you pay less than someone in an old hot hatch etc etc.
The way this legislation is heading will open a can of worms. Not only ageism/racism issues but what about penalising those with performance cars? Why should they pay more. Come to think of why penalise a drink driver? Brussels should stick to what they do best.... fiddling their expenses and straitening bananas.
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Personally I think insurance companies should treble rates for all politicians: they are mainly a danger to everyone's pocket.
madf
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The word "leaked" in the article set alarm bells ringing for me. Who on earth would want to leak information about legislation currently being discussed by the EU and not yet passed--in fact not yet even voted on? I wonder. Maybe somebody opposed to the EU perhaps, who wants to spread disinformation? Somebody in the EU legislative system no doubt thinks/thought this is a good idea, but I'll bet this was just an idea that was kicked around. Nothing in the article suggests it is likely to happen. Maybe an insurance company was consulted about it and that's how the information has leaked--I can't imagine the inscos are happy about the idea. But anyway this will not happen; it is an EU myth like straight bananas and cubic tomatoes. Repeat ten times after me: "Tabloid journalism is rubbish and cannot be trusted."
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