but if they only do 50% as many miles, then that makes things a little different

Not from an insurance point of view.

Let's say both sexes are equally safe at driving but men do twice as much mileage, then men are twice the (financial) risk as women.

Insurance is money in to money out; the rest just helps to understand why & so helps determine at what level premiums should be set in order to be low enough to attract customers whilst still making a profit

I'd put the blame at the door of the ECHR rather than those with 2 'X' chromosomes.

They can't resist any chance to stamp their authority on domestic matters. If you're wondering why drivers passing their test after 1997 have more restrictions on their licence than those who passed their test before the arbitrary date-blame the EU. Britain didn't want it.

Same goes for CBT training for small motorcycles. Because 50 kph corrosponds to 31mph, then the glorious EU deems that training at a 30mph speed limit is invalid-so the training must take place on an expensive off-road site and be conducted at 50kph. British road safety statistics are better than most European countries bar Sweden and the Netherlands. So I think they should be told to sod off and sort their own road safety out!

It doesn't help that British governments are rather spineless. When Sweden and Finland wanted an exemption from the blanket European limit of 44 tonne HGV (sorry LGV since some languages don't have an equivalent word for 'heavy'), they fought for it and got it. Lots of 60 tonne log trucks on Sweden's roads.

Your ex's premium will go up-don't expect yours to come down. The margins on car insurance are tight-very tight. When you chuck the actuarial evidence out of the window, the insurance companies will err on the financially conservative side and raise premiums to cover the uncertainty. The old system was a swine for responsible 17 year old males,, but after a couple of years NCD the difference between men and woman was vastly reduced.

Well I started this thread, and I am a 27 year old woman. Like I said, it has really annoyed me, not because I believe I am a safer driver than any man, but because the UK has let the EU dictate to us what they want to see happen, and we're just rolling over and going 'ok!'.

It also means that while premiums level out for men and women, everybody's insurance goes up - men's won't go down to match women's, and they won't meet in the middle when they can charge as much as possible. It's just one more extra squeeze on people when the economy is a pig's ear and everyone is skint!

What I'd like to see is better consideration of where you keep the car. I used to live in a small city and parked on the street. I moved to a different city in the same region, out in the suburbs, and now I have a driveway and a garage, yet my insurance went up.

@Bobbin, what you think of the EU's enforcement of this and whether or not they should be creating laws which apply to their member states is a topic for another thread. Im just looking at the basic principle, i dont care who's enforced it. If the UK enforced this law itself would you then back it? Is the fact its the EU enforcing it the only reason you disagree with it? It seems to me if the UK introduces a law, people are ok with it, if the EU does it, regardless of how much sense it makes, we hate it.

And your comment about how insurance companies will just charge more and be out of control is more to do with how the British Government lets the Insurance Industry here run riot with very little regulation to control them and thats happening already, thats our fault, not the EU's fault. When you let hundreds of private companies all decide how much it should cost for something you are legally obliged to buy, this is the sort of mess you end up with, too many companies with too many fingers in too many pies, im sure you've seen the recent stories about accident claims management companies and insurance companies pocketing from referral fees and losing ones upping premiums to cover it, THAT is the big problem facing the UK Insurance Industry and that is whats driving your premiums up, NOT gender equality.

But you're right it should be based on individual merits, i 100% agree, meaning it should not be based on sexism or gender statistics. I also totally agree to be penalised for something someone else has done is wrong, just because you happen to fall into the same age group. Someone above claimed to make it fair everyone should pay the same, well that would be unfair to drivers who have proven themselves trustworthy and would benefit poor drivers more, so thats not fair at all. It should be based purely on Age (although i do feel its ageist, but i suppose if that was made illegal they'd just transfer it to the experience category instead), Occupation (simple fact is people in certain jobs are more likely to have their car damaged than other, most insurers wont insure footballers for example, too much of a target) Driving Experience, the Vehicle in question, Where you live and where its kept. Although i do feel the huge contrast in premiums between some postcodes in close proximity are very alarming and wrong and needs to be urgently reviewed. But none of this is discriminatory against something the person can do nothing about, such as basing it on gender, race, religion etc.

You're right some of the questions they ask are stupid, i still dont see why they need to know if you're married or not and why that should make a difference. Again they'll say its to do with statistics, but again they wouldnt be allowed to use stats saying black people have more crashes would they? Because it'd be discrimination, so why have they been allowed to use Gender stats?

And unfortunatley i suppose their stats say state school kids are more likely to kick your wing mirror off on the way out of school than posh toff kids.

You're right the things they ask are stupid, i completely agree with you, but i also agree with the EU in that gender shouldnt be a factor. I feel if it was the other way round, with women paying over the odds for so long, it wouldve been changed decades ago. As i said earlier women cannot campaign for equal rights and to be treated fairly only when it suits them, the downside of equality is sometimes you can lose when you dont deserve to. And the reason the EU have had to do it is because the UK wouldnt, the UK has been happy to allow sex discrimination to continue, they've been happy for inequality to prevail and were never going to change it themselves, so someone else has had to do it for them.

Edited by jamie745 on 19/05/2011 at 15:46

Barely breaks even my a***. Perhaps if insurance companies didnt encourage people to never admit fault and didnt spend £1million each time in proving somebodies obvious guilt then they'd make some money. Again, its them who's done this, not us. They have made the system the way it is and will obviously do everything they can to get the best out of it for themselves, i'd expect nothing less. But they cannot come crying to us that they make no money.

If they dont make any money, then stopping given women a discount purely for being a woman will be very welcome to them. We currently have a system which rewards women for having accidents. Let me give you an example, when i was 21 my girlfriend who was a couple of months younger than me, lived 15 miles away from me and had a very similair car (Ford Escort's both of them, mine was a year older, we actually got them from the same place, god that sounds so sad now doesnt it LOL!) and my premiums came out at about 40% more than hers (it came out at double when we were both 18/19). I was sold the reason for this was she is a "better driver" due to being a woman. However 12 months on she'd had three accidents, albiet minor, nothing to write the car off, your typical door mirror coming off in a car park and backing up into a tree etc, one of the claims didnt need to be made, couldve fixed it herself for a few quid, so to be fair lets call it two claims. but she made these claims and still her insurance didnt cost as much as mine come renewal time. So the question is, who is paying for the insurance payouts on bad women drivers? I'll tell you who. Men. My premium went up, probably to cover women who back up into lamp posts in supermarkets.

So even though she proved the idea she is a better driver due to being a woman to be completely false, untrue and a con, she still got lower premiums, yes it did go up slightly but not as much as if i'd have had the same prangs, and i know this because i checked.

Insurance company told me she was a safer driver because she's a woman, she proved that to be untrue, and yet still wasnt penalised for it.

So the sooner we can remove rubbish like that, the better.

And all my comment on the EU was about was that discussions about the powers of the EU can run into hours and pages of discussion and the EU's powers isnt what this thread is about, its about insurance levelling, thats all i was trying to say.

Edited by jamie745 on 19/05/2011 at 16:19

I have a grudge against gender discrimination in what is supposed to be a first world developed intelligent country in the 21st century.

So sue me.

With all the organised gangs with a specific background making false injury claims and staging accidents 24/7, maybe it's time ethnic origin was included in the risk factoring? At least it would make such activities which are rife within certain communities harder to do and would make decent members of the community angry with them for the higher premiums. The differences between male and female must pale into insignificance when compared.