back to article Sheila's Fails? The statistics of biological risk

Yesterday’s ruling by the European Courts may have stirred the general public to a wide-ranging and not altogether informed debate on the issues of gender discrimination. Less obvious, but in the long run more serious, is the fundamental challenge it poses to the way in which two pillars of the establishment – the financial …

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  1. lglethal Silver badge
    Go

    Whilst your right Jane...

    ... that this should not lead to an increase in the overall risk associated with the population as a whole, you seem to forget that insurers are, like all corporations, greedy bastards. Therefore, this will be a lovely excuse for all insurers to raise there prices appropriately.

    On a relatively off-topic side note, ive always wondered how companies like Sheila's Wheels and women only gyms are allowed to operate under anti-discrimination laws. Im not against these establishments but whats the legal basis? ideas?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      It's called "positive discrimination"

      The MET famously only considered applicants from an ethnic backgroud. So, if you were white, your application was torn up. Of course, there would be outrage if this was done against any other group, but if you attack the "majority" it's considered fair.

      Similarly, if you had a "men" only product there would be outrage - Anyone remember the "It's not for girls" slogan on Yorkie bars? Yep, that was sufficient for them all to be removed from canteens and vending machines of a former company (who shall remain nameless, but a large american motor company, with a large presence in Essex, and a blue oval as a logo)

      As a male driver, I've had years of higher insurance premiums (including an amusing unexplained 30% increase this year). I have NEVER had an accident, despite spending a good few years in the "high risk" demograpic. Perhaps rather than splitting the risk between male/female, they should establish whether the owner is infact a chav? I'm sure that will be far more accurate.

      All I want is to join a "ladies only" gym. So I can ogle chicks.

      1. Chad H.
        Joke

        they should establish whether the owner is infact a chav

        I can see it now on the insuance forms

        1: are you trying to pimp your ride?

        2: how much have you spent on "bling"?

        3: how many subwoofers do you have and what is their maximum output?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Joke

          @Chad H.

          You only need one question:

          1. Do you like "Happy Hardcore"?

          (I like your idea, though!)

          1. John 62

            happy hardcore

            what's not to like? :) Hard to get good happy hardcore now, though, especially since the rise of dubstep.

      2. The Commenter formally known as Matt
        FAIL

        positive discrimination is still discrimination

        >The MET famously only considered applicants from an ethnic backgroud. So, if you were white, your application was torn up.

        This policy was also famously slapped down by the courts for racial discrimination.

        The law is quite clear throughout Europe, discrimination (sex,age,race,martial status etc) is illegal weather 'pro' or 'neg'.

    2. Kevin Bailey

      The world is going mad....

      How on earth is a bunch of unelected nobodies deciding what happens in a commercial transaction between bookies/insurers and punters in a different country?

      What? Is a fifty year old woman driver in a Citroen 2CV with a clean license now supposed to pay the same yearly premium as a 17 year-old male with a drink driving conviction and a Subaru Impreza...

      ...cos otherwise it's *discrimination*.

      This is as insane as the couple who were fined for getting off a train *before* it had got to the station which they had *paid* to go to.

      Beware people - common sense seems to in very short supply.

      I see dumb people - everywhere - walking around like normal people - they don't know they're dumb. We need to let them know how dumb they are.

      1. Stephen 5

        Going mad? No you miss the point.

        "What? Is a fifty year old woman driver in a Citroen 2CV with a clean license now supposed to pay the same yearly premium as a 17 year-old male with a drink driving conviction and a Subaru Impreza..."

        Actually the male will pay more because he is higher risk due to having a higher powered car and a drink driving conviction.

        You can measure the risk without asking someone's gender by only looking at factors that will have an impact of their driving such as their claims history, driving convictions, time spent driving, and the type of car. Insurers do this already so there is no need to discriminate based on biology.

        In the current situation I as a man (who has a clean license, never made a claim and drive a low powered car) I pay more for insurance than my sister who drives a higher powered motor than me and has been in an accident a few years ago where her old car was written off...

        That is the reality and you can't tell me that I am the higher risk driver here.

    3. cpage

      nothng to stop you insuring with Sheila's wheels

      They don't - I'm a male and have an insurance policy with Sheila's wheels.

  2. Aquilus
    Thumb Up

    You must dine at my club

    Now taking applications to join "Sheila's Private Members' Club". Per the exclusion in equalities legislation, we are permitted to restrict membership on the basis of sex. It just so happens that a perk of membership is a free car insurance policy. Fancy that!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Important distinction

    This is a very good article. I would like to add to the discussion a very important distinction though. That is the difference between compulsory and non-compulsory insurance.

    Motor insurance (at least 3rd party) is compulsory in the UK. This means that after the changes required by this court judgement, exactly the same pool of people will need to buy insurance. Premiums should not change on aggregate, unless the insurance industry intends to use the decision for profiteering.

    All other forms of insurance are optional. When deciding whether to take the insurance, a rational person will try to decide whether it is too expensive given their situation. Take retirement annuities for example. If I don't expect to live for more than a few years (for whatever reason), I'm not going to buy a retirement annuity where discrimination law means I am buying the same annuity as the average person (and hence buying an annuity which should last for much longer. A disabled person with a much shorter life expectancy (remember disability is also a protected class) is just not going to buy the annuity. This take a pool of risk out of the equation and may therefore result in increased prices for everyone else.

    The tricky thing here is going to be dealing with things like age discrimination; disability discrimination; etc. Since these could have much more material effects on insurance premiums in many areas than male/female differences in car insurance.

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: pensions

      If you have already saved up some money in a pension, then your options when you get to retirement are limited. Drawdown is an alternative to an annuity, but only if you have a very large fund.

    2. Velv
      Big Brother

      Aggregate will change

      "exactly the same pool of people will need to buy insurance. Premiums should not change on aggregate"

      However the underlying risk will change dramatically, pushing the total cost up!

      Why?

      Boy racers will pay substantially lower premiums and will therefore be able to afford to drive more powerful cars. This will lead to more accidents, the total insurance payouts will go up, therefore the aggregate premiums will need to increase in proportion.

      So to counter the "insurance as a social good" question, we need to throw in the Capitalism vs communism argument. Is it better for everyone if the aggregate is cheaper, or an individuals premium might be cheaper. Why not introduce a flat rate premium for everyone? The increased payouts due to cheaper insurance for "bad risks" would lead to a much higher average for everyone.

      Experience is what makes the difference, and this will still be a major factor in determining premiums. Until the ECJ rules on that too.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just a little insurance related factoid

    "Young males are riskier on average behind a steering wheel..............Those are statistical facts"

    I have always found this statement to be an odd one.

    Being a young male myself, who has only been driving for 4 years, I can safely say that the only people I know who have been involved in car accidents (serious or otherwise) have been young women.

    Riskier maybe, less safe? not necessarily.

    1. The BigYin

      An individual...

      ...experience != population norms.

      I am a male and I have had a few mishaps (from stupid stuff in a car park at sub-5mph to a head-on*). So am I proof that males are more dangerous? Nup. I am only proof that *I* am possibly more dangerous (or I driver in riskier conditions, or...)

      One must be careful about abstracting generalities from a statistically insignificant set (especially one with selection bias such as yours).

      ---

      *I do not recommend it one bit. Although getting run over by the cop afterwards hurt even more**.

      **I really wish I was making this up.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Look at the statistics

      If you look at the overall population statistics you find that young women are fractionally more likely to have an accident, but that accidents that young men have tend to cost a lot more in the insurance claim. Basically when young men crash they are more likely to have totally written off the car, and also potentially taken out another car or some other items at the same time. This increases even further when you look at young men in sporty cars vs the rest of the population. This is the reason why when a young male tries to buy a sporty car of any sort, often the insurance premium for 3rd party ends up higher than the value of the car.

      Please don't make the mistake of extrapolating population trends from personal experience. If you run the statistics on that, you will find that the experience of you and a few dozen friends is a very poor predictor of population trends.

      1. Doc Spock
        Stop

        Re: Look at the Statistics

        Statistically, I have a 50% chance of being female (give or take), therefore half my premium should be priced as if I were.

        In the same way that individuals do not make statistics, statistics do not make individuals.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Reply from the OP

        I was not "extrapolating population trends from personal experience." just making a statement.

        Also, for the record, all of the Female oriented accidents that I was referring to were right offs.

        Also also, I don't know any young people, male or female, that own a 'sporty' car as they can neither afford the initial outlay, or the ridiculous insurance.

        Just saying

      3. The BigYin

        @AC

        I thought that was the case (women, more but less severe incidents; men, wipe out!), but couldn't be 100% sure.

        Reads like an argument for stepped car-licenses if you ask me (mandatory basic control test then low, mid and high capacity).

    3. TeeCee Gold badge
      Grenade

      Re: factoid

      You are missing the Big Fat Hairy Deal there.

      From a motor insurance perspective (I have a couple of friends in the statistical end of the business), your young women will likely break a light or bend a wing. Your young bloke is infinitely more likely to wrap his Eurobox round a tree at 70mph while shitfaced, killing himself and most importantly, the four mates he has in the car at the time. Substitute "oncoming vehicle" for "tree" and the problem is compounded. Get thee over to the press sites and lookup all the "[n] teenagers killed in horrific crash" stories. Now note how many female drivers are represented. See?

      Personal injury / death compensation claims make vehicle repair / replacement costs look pathetic.

      Incidently this is why, for a young driver, the best premiums are to be had on a Smart ForTwo. The fact that it only has two occupants dramatically reduces the likely payout in the event of serious fuckup and the level of possible fuckup is significantly lower than with other two seat vehicles.

      1. david wilson

        Confounding factor

        Possibly there's also a confounding factor operating.

        Depending where the figures come from, it could be that the 'slightly more women have accidents' is at least partly an artifact of the way accident costs work out.

        Given the costs of insurance for young males, a male who has a minor accident may be somewhat less likely to make an insurance claim than a female who had an identical accident, since it may be more expensive for him to make a claim in terms of future premiums, and/or in terms of excesses he accepted in order to get a policy he could afford in the first place.

    4. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: insurance

      Women are more likely to have accidents, however, men have more expensive accidents.

      A typical women driver accident is scraping a load of neighbouring cars while trying to park, which will cause hundreds or maybe low thousands of pounds of damage.

      A typical boy racer accident is a 100+mph head-on collision on the wrong side of the road while overtaking, which means two or three completely written off cars, medical bills and so on - claim cost will be high tens or low hundreds of thousands.

      1. Danny 14
        Thumb Down

        however this highlights the case in point

        There are also women who drive at 100mph wrapping their cars around lamp posts. Ive been self employed driving 100km per year for 5 years without any incident. There are 60 year olds who have never driven that amount in their lifetime with more accidents - yet my experience counts for nothing as I am a statistic.

        Insurance is not based on individual risk, it is demographics.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Subjective opinions are worthless.

      So one individual's personal opinion carries more weight than (government) accident statistics collected from police, hospital and mortuary records?

      Here's another statistic to consider: 95% of drivers regard themselves as better than average.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        Young black men

        Are also more likely to have an accident. Dosen't meen they should include race/background etc in insurence.

        1. Super Fast Jellyfish
          FAIL

          cite your evidence

          "Young black men Are also more likely to have an accident" than whom?

          Old chinese women? Quite possibly due to age and gender...

  5. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Important distinction

    Wasn't a case like this already thrown out because it would have a much bigger effect on annuity rates - women live longer and so pay a lot more for annuities - if this case goes through then won't the same logic apply?

    Still you should be thankful that there is competition in car insurance.

    Here when insurance was made compulsory the govt decided it must run it - so that it was available to anyone. So everybody pays pretty much the same liability part, somebody with 30 years experience and a mini pays the same as a 17year old who just got bought a Porsche by daddy. And although the insurance company isn't supposed to make a profit - it does have to cover government levels of operating costs - as you can imagine rates here aren't cheap.

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Richard Barnes

    Why everybody's premiums go up

    The more uncertainty that an insurance company has about a risk, the greater the reserve that will have to be held. While the aggregate risk remains the same, the insurance companies will all have to hold greater reserves as they won't have as much information about the risks they are carrying. Bigger reserves mean bigger premiums.

    1. The Indomitable Gall

      Really?

      Just because they're not allowed to make an individual risk assessment based on gender, doesn't mean they're not going to track that information and know the overall aggregate risk.

    2. Steven Knox
      Boffin

      Except....

      that they can still collect the data, and use it when assessing their aggregate risk. The ruling simply prevents them from applying that particular factor to the premium, not from monitoring it altogether*.

      No, the real reason the premiums will go up is because the premium differentiation in this case served to _allow_ insurance companies to discriminate by increasing premiums on undesirables. From the individual company's perspective, this means they'll have to accept more high-risk customers, increasing the aggregate risk.

      It is also only true that the overall aggregate risk will not increase if the pool of insured does not change AT ALL. But this is highly unlikely. There are individuals out there who do not have auto insurance because of the cost of premiums, some of whom are male. If we follow the ideal curve caused by removal of gender as a factor, premiums for men WILL decrease. That will make insurance more attractive to some high-risk individuals who currently don't have it. The marginal ones may enter the pool, thus increasing the overall aggregate risk and requiring an increase in premiums to cover it. This in turn may discourage some of those high-risk individuals, but the overall effect will be an increase in the overall aggregate risk. The increased premiums may also cause some lower-risk individuals to forgo insurance. So the premise that the overall aggregate risk will not change is at best unsubstantiated.

      *A ruling preventing statistical analysis of such factors altogether would spell doom for the industry, since as pointed out correctly in your post, that would raise their uncertainty significantly.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Bookies will handle risks that insurers won't

    I've heard that two years before the late Queen Mum died, one of the Cambridge colleges (or its ball committee) had its May Ball insured against being cancelled as a sign of respect if she died shortly before it; the following year, none of the insurers would touch this risk, so they went to a bookies and took out a bet that she would die in the critical period.

    But can high-risk young men head down to Ladbrooke's and take out a bet that they'll crash sometime this year, and call it insurance? And are the bookies obliged to offer the same odds for men and women (I guess they are)?

    Paris, 'cos she's as risky as any man.

  9. DavCrav

    So number of accidents is out then!!!

    Think about it: if men have more accidents than women, and this is a "statistical fact", then you cannot use having an accident for the premium. So this will work very well.

    And if more men have driving convictions than women (or the other way round) you cannot use those either.

    This is great! Soon car insurance will be the poll tax: flat rate. Sounds...interesting.

    1. Doc Spock

      @DavCrav

      Not quite.

      Everyone's initial premiums will start at some fixed flat rate. People who have accidents will see their premiums go up. People who don't will see their premiums go down.

      Seems perfect, no?

      1. DavCrav

        Could you use that?

        I'm not sure. If I have a lot of accidents then statistically that means I'm probably a man, and so this is gender bias. It depends on how silly they get with this, but previous accidents that you have had might well not be admissible.

  10. AndrueC Silver badge
    Megaphone

    I get discriminated against

    ..because I'm a single male. In comparing quotes with friends it's clear that I have to pay extra because I'm not married. What bugs me is that married folks seem to spend half their time distracting each other with petty arguments and/or driving around in a bad mood.

    So when can I can expect a reduction in my premiums?

    Fetch the bread - I can hear bacon flying overhead :(

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Similar Story Here

      I am a named (occasional) second driver on my girlfriend's car. She was told that the total premium would be less if we lived together. In other words, were we to be in a situation where I would likely drive the car _more_, it would cost less. This is daft, considering I am a "young male" who insurers hate!

      Just an example of how statistics can be abused by insurers (i.e., they apply them incorrectly).

      1. jcw
        Grenade

        Simple solution

        Wow! You've just spotted a brilliant opportunity. Cash in by starting your own insurance company, based on these wonderful insights (insurers are still, I believe, allowed to discriminate based on marital status).

        Or maybe, just maybe, the insurers have done their statistical analyses rather than pulling hypotheses out of their rectums. Given the vast gobs of cash involved that's what I'd have done if I were them, but hey, everyone else in the universe is a fool, right?

  11. JimC

    One reason premiums could rise...

    Insurance is effectively unaffordable for many young males in the high risk groups. So a significant percentage don't dive until they are older and safer. If insurance becomes affordable for them then more drive and there are more accidents (and road deaths and injuries) insurance payouts go up and so on.

    On the other hand there will presumably be fewer uninsured young male drivers about if insurance for them becomes cheaper.

    The calcs won't be simple of course, because increased premiums will probably discourage more young females from driving or at least buying insurance, so a safer group comes out of the stats. How it will balance out goodness only knows.

    Insurance being so marginal on profit anyway the smart money is that insurance companies will tend to err on the expensive side for premiums until they see what the changes in risk are on the ground...

  12. Eddie Edwards
    Thumb Down

    Strawman

    Maybe I've missed something. The ruling is about explicit gender discrimination as per Shiela's Wheels et al.

    The author appears to consider that outlawing direct discrimination is some kind of "gateway drug" to outlawing indirect discrimination. But I don't see any evidence that this kind of indirect discrimination is going to be outlawed. In fact, as author points out, there are good reasons not to outlaw it (for example, age and experience are correlated, but that doesn't make it "ageist" to discriminate based on experience).

    The whole argument therefore seems to be something of a strawman against the current legislation, which is about direct discrimination, and not about indirect discrimination at all.

    Maybe the author should save this article for when what she's arguing against is actually proposed.

  13. Wommit
    Flame

    The law is an ass

    In the discussions of this ECJ ruling I have heard time and time again 'Insurers are just greedy bastards' and words to that effect.

    Insurance, and re-insurance, is just a business. It needs to make profits to survive just like any other business. And, like all other businesses insurers are in direct competition with other insurers.

    So, unless you can prove collusion and price fixing within the industry each insurer must try to keep their costs, and thus premiums down to the minimum that they can. This is simple business sense.

    Another, often voiced, claim is that insurers think that one group of people are 'better' or 'worse' drivers than another group. this is just untrue. The insurers _know_ that one group of people is a higher risk than another. And another group is a much lower risk than others. Yes this is based on statistics. And it is based on actual experience.

    If I do a SELECT on my claims database, and group the output to show total payments, broken by age ranges, and split by gender, then the output, from a history of actual claims, is obvious. Younger males are a greater risk than older females. This is a fact. I don't care if you scream discrimination, all motor insurers will be able to show the same outputs from their own data. Facts do not discriminate. They are just facts.

    So, this judgment is purely social engineering. Trying to ignore reality and impose a world view on to facts that doesn't fit, damages, not only the businesses it relates to, but the people who use those businesses.

    If we take into account age as well, then similar data mining will show the obvious results. Women, on average, live longer than men. Don't blame me for this, it too is a fact. On average men have different medical histories than women. No matter how loud you demand that these be made equal, it won't happen. These are facts. And facts do not care what social engineers think.

    1. Doc Spock
      Alert

      Statistics vs Individuals

      "If I do a SELECT on my claims database, and group the output to show total payments, broken by age ranges, and split by gender, then the output, from a history of actual claims, is obvious. Younger males are a greater risk than older females. This is a fact."

      Statistically, across the entire population of insured persons, that is true. However, pick a male at random and a female at random from your database. Can you guarantee that specific female will be less risky to ensure than that specific male? It should be obvious that the answer is "no".

      This is the crux of the problem - applying broad statistics to individuals doesn't always work.

      1. david wilson

        @Doc Spock

        >>"Can you guarantee that specific female will be less risky to ensure than that specific male? It should be obvious that the answer is "no".

        This is the crux of the problem - applying broad statistics to individuals doesn't always work."

        'Risk' is inherently probabilistic.

        If you have particular items of information about the male and female, (or even if you have no information beyond the gender) then the best estimate of the risk is obtained by looking at the statistical data and seeing what kinds of outcome came from insuring people like them in the past.

      2. Chris Miller

        @Doc

        I assume your doctorate isn't in statistics or a related discipline.

        You're right that applying broad statistics to individuals doesn't work, and if you operated an insurance business on only 2 individuals you'd risk severe difficulties. But insurance companies insure large numbers of individuals and so the statistics are (almost) certain to work for them.

        Just as when I toss a fair coin I know there's a 50% chance of heads - but on any individual toss I can't predict the outcome. If, however, I toss the coin a thousand times I know that it's (almost) certain that I will see between 400 and 600 heads. If I insure a thousand each (comparable) male and female car drivers, I will almost certainly pay out more in claims on the male drivers.

        1. Doc Spock

          @Chris Miller

          I don't have a PhD. Nor am I a Trekkie. I simply couldn't think of a better name when signing up. (aren't the intarwebs great!)

          However, after implying that my reasoning was flawed, you then state that it is impossible to determine the outcome of a fair coin toss - that was exactly my point!

          Yes, it makes economic sense for the insurers to charge men more, but that doesn't mean that _every_ man will cost them more. For the sake of being concrete, consider the following example:

          There a 1m men and 1m women insured by company X. 0.5m men and 1m women have a risk factor of 0.2 and the remaining 0.5m men have a risk factor of 0.6. This means that men have a risk factor of 0.4 and women have a risk factor of 0.2. Statistically, men's premiums should be double that of women's. However, the reality is that the 0.5m high-risk men should have premiums three times that of everyone else.

          I understand that insurers use a lot of metrics to try and determine an individual's risk factor, but the set of metrics they do use fall far short of what is required to give a "reasonably fair" insurance premium.

          Just to be clear, I have no problem with insurers using gender as a metric to determine risk, but it should not be weighted as strongly as is currently the case.

          1. david wilson

            @Doc Spock

            >>"I understand that insurers use a lot of metrics to try and determine an individual's risk factor, but the set of metrics they do use fall far short of what is required to give a "reasonably fair" insurance premium."

            If someone was confident they could reliably separate the high risk males from the low risk ones, I imagine they could do fairly well out of the low risk males by charging them lower rates than they'd pay elsewhere, and by bumping up premiums for the high risk males to either make them pay their way or go elsewhere.

  14. Jedibeeftrix

    "Why the ECJ insurance judgment might not be the right road after all"

    Agreed fundamentally stupid decision. I don't subscribe to a political ideology that seeks manage everything for the 'greater' good, i accept the limits of what the state can and should do, and i accept the consequences of the occasional death in order that everyones right to do dangerous 'stuff' is not curtailed.

    That means it's ok to discriminate against high risk insurance groups, just as it's ok to let 'dangerous' under-25 males drive cars, because life is risky.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Problems...

    I can certainly see where the gender factor is valid, for example on a new driver, but then it shoudl stop.

    I have 20 years no claims, the wife has 5.

    I'm older (but far from the higher risk over 70's)

    I'm in a lower risk job.

    Yet why is it, her car insurance is STILL about 10% less on the same cars?

    Now that has no justification other than blatant sex discrimination.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      The problem here

      Is simply that the insurance companies have decided to only discount accident free experience a certain amount - generally 5 years of no-claims is the maximum you can get. The reasons for this could be 2-fold. Firstly, it could be that your probability of having less accidents if you have 5 years without an accident could be negligibly different from if you have 6 years without an accident. The second reason could be that if they reduced costs further for 20 years without an accident, the additional cost for 0 years without an accident would make it harder for insurance companies to get new customers. Either could be true, it might even be a combination of these factors.

      The reason is not discrimination though. The reason is just that for commercial or statistical reasons, your difference (20 years no claims vs 5 years no claims) has fallen outside the scope of the actuarial tables.

      1. John I'm only dancing
        Stop

        Another problem

        In 2003, I had the maximum no claims bonus (NCB) after going 14 years without an accident or claim, My wife, had never had any car insurance of her own.

        When she was quoted for her first car, they said, include me as a named driver and she would qualify to use my NCB, which cut 70 per cnet off her first premium. Since then, I have have made no claims, nor incurred any points on my licence, while she has had one car written off in accident (not her fault, hit from behind while stationary at a zebra crossing).

        But my premiums have significantly increased in that time for the same class of vehicle, by around 30 per cent, while hers have risen only 10 per cent. Insurers are just swindlers of the second highest order, just below the bankers.

        I certainly feel discriminated against for being male.

  16. bluesxman
    Go

    Citation Required

    I seem to recall hearing somewhere (yes, vague I know) that the reason women have statistically fewer accidents is more to do with miles driven than the quality of their driving.

    Allegedly men tend to do more miles on average.

    More miles = more exposure to other road users = greater chance of an accident.

    This sounds believable if you simply assume that in spite of many years of women striving for equality that men are more likely to be the "bread winners" thus are more likely to have a driven commute of significant length.

    That said, from my own anecdotal evidence, most of the people who behave like wankers on the road seem to be blokes. But then again most recent person I had to beep at for nearly causing me to be in an accident (by crossing a junction, across my path, when only the protected left turn light was green) was a bird.

    My point? Not really sure.

  17. Tom Wood

    Correlation vs causation

    ...is the problem.

    As far as an insurer goes, correlation is enough to indicate a probability, and as all decisions are based on probabilities, that's all that matters. Aggregated over a large enough population these probabilities are reflected in actual events.

    But, as we all know, correlation does not imply causation. Just because an individual has a penis does not cause him to be a worse driver. This is where it becomes "unfair" - you're making an assumption that you can apply a property of the population as a whole to determine something about an individual, which is unfair if for whatever reason that individual doesn't match the population as a whole (some young male drivers are actually very careful, for instance, so it's unfair to tar them all with the same brush).

    When it comes to other things, like annuities, maybe there is something inherent in the chromosomes that makes women live longer than men; if that causal link can be proven then it's fair enough to use that as a pricing differentiator.

    But all this will fall on deaf ears, because the media will happily make you believe that just because X and Y occur together means X causes Y, or Y causes X, or less of Y will cause less of X, or whatever suits the headline.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Nicely misunderstood

      It seems you read "Correlation does not imply causation" on the back of a matchbox and now quote that for everything without understanding it. The reality is, sex is a very good predictor of accident rates. That is a causal relationship. If it was just correlation without causation, sex would not be a good predictor. Of course, the distribution of accident rates is not narrow. There are many other predictors, many of which are not easy for the insurance company to measure. The variance caused by these other predictors mean that many people get tarred with the same brush potentially unfairly. However, do not be mistaken. Sex is an exceptionally good predictor of the cost to insure someone.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        Um, no.

        Only men get testicular cancer. However, being male does not cause testicular cancer. In other words, "being male" and "having testicular cancer" are correlated.

        Now swap "having testicular cancer" with "having more accidents" and you will see that it too is a correlation.

      2. Steven Knox
        Boffin

        NO.

        @AC "Nicely misunderstood.

        "The reality is, sex is a very good predictor of accident rates. That is a causal relationship. If it was just correlation without causation, sex would not be a good predictor."

        THIS STATEMENT IS ENTIRELY WRONG. A predictor is NOT a causal relationship. It is a mathematical relationship that simply states "There exists a given equation which, when applied to factor A will give an accurate estimate of factor B within a given level of statistical significance.

        Correlation means that in the given dataset, factor A is a good mathematical predictor of factor B. A statistical analysis CANNOT GIVE YOU CAUSATION because it tests nothing but the mathematical relationship.

        Only experimentation and logical inference can give you an indication of causation, and inference can only say that causation is likely.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Flame

          You may or may not have noted

          That in my comment I said that sex is a very good PREDICTOR of accident rates. Not that it was merely correlated. You can measure correlation between 2 data sets. Then you can use that measured correlation to attempt to predict a future event. If your prediction is successful with statistics that show it is not just random chance, then you have developed strong statistical evidence of a causal relationship. You can also use those statistics to measure how strong the causal relationship is. If the correlation has occurred through random chance rather than causation, then the process of measuring how good the correlation was at predicting future results is a very good way to find that out.

          The use of something in prediction is a key distinction between just measuring correlations. The reason for this is obvious. Causation requires a timeline - the initial thing must appropriately predict the thing you are trying to establish a causal relationship with. Putting your hand in a fire causes a burn, not the other way around, simply because the action of putting your hand in the fire precedes the burn. If you measure the correlation between burns and putting your hand in the fire you will get a high correlation. To establish which way causation runs, you can try to use one to predict the other. Does putting my hand in the fire predict a few seconds later that I have a burn; and does getting a burn predict a few seconds later that I will put my hand in the fire. Here you find that one thing predicts well, the other doesn't. Predictability is the key measure of whether a correlation is causal.

          Remember of course, that the causal link between being male and having a higher cost of accidents is quite simple to describe. Young males have a higher level of testosterone than young females. Testosterone is the key hormone which distinguishes risk taking and confrontational emotions between people. Young males are more likely therefore to take risks and be confrontational. This leads to more dangerous accidents when driving. The causal relationship is strong and is evidenced very well through existing correlation being tested in a predictable way.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Thumb Down

            Re: you may or may not have noted

            You are still the one who is misunderstanding it.

            As the back of the matchbox says: "Causation implies correlation, but correlation does not imply causation".

            In other words, the fact that two events are correlated says nothing about whether one is the direct result of the other. It may indeed be the case (as in your hands in the fire example), or it may not be (as in the testicular cancer example).

            I agree that the gender of a driver is a semi-reasonable indicator for the likelihood that they will have an accident, but that is still a correlation, not a causal relationship. As for high levels of testosterone in young males, that does not have a causal link to accidents. If it did, then _every_single_ young male who drove would have an accident. Since that isn't the case, it is only a correlation, albeit a strong correlation.

            It should be clear why putting your (unprotected) hand in a fire and getting a burnt hand is causal - no-one can do the former without the latter happening.

          2. Steven Knox
            Boffin

            Predictors

            "Predictors. Predictors (also called independent or input variables) are variables used to predict or explain the value(s) of one or more dependent variables (also referred to as dependent or outcome variables)." [from http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/statistics-glossary/p/button/p/]

            Note that there is NO mention of time or causality in that definition. That's because in statistics, predictors are not necessarily indicative of causal relationships. Terminology aside, what you're actually doing is not predictive; you're inferring that a correlation is a causal relationship through observation and logical induction, viz:

            "[Observation:] Young males have a higher level of testosterone than young females. [Observation:] Testosterone is the key hormone which distinguishes risk taking and confrontational emotions between people. [Induction:] Young males are more likely therefore to take risks and be confrontational. [Induction:] This leads to more dangerous accidents when driving."

    2. DavCrav

      XKCD

      I'd just like to say:

      "I used to think correlation implied causation, but then I took a statistics class, and now I don't."

      "Sounds like that class helped then."

      "Well, maybe."

      1. Tom Wood

        I'm glad

        ...that others also see where I'm coming from, even when people find it difficult to get their head around.

        We can certainly show that being male is neither a necessary nor sufficient cause for car accidents (some women do have accidents, and some men never have accidents).

        You might hypothesise that being male is, however, a contributory cause for car accidents. If there were a lack of correlation between being a man and having a car accident we would have disproved this hypothesis, but if we do observe a correlation that is still not sufficient to prove the hypothesis. There could still be other explanations for the observed correlation. Testosterone is one possibility. So then you'd have to go and build evidence for the causal link between testosterone levels and car accidents, and also a causal link between being a man and having high testosterone levels. And so on. This all requires a good deal of robust scientific research, and you'd need to be prepared to go down many blind alleys in the process (if, for instance, you found that the differences in testosterone levels in a sample of people were not sufficient to explain the difference in car accidents, you'd be left searching for another explanation for the correlation you first observed.)

        The main point is that demonstrating a causal link requires a great deal more effort than just observing a correlation. It's a shame that more people, particularly journalists, don't appreciate the subtlety - if they did we might see fewer "X causes cancer" articles from the likes of the Daily Mail when actually often they are reporting on research where researchers have only demonstrated a correlation and possibly proposed a hypothesis.

        1. David Beck
          Thumb Down

          None of this exchange applies to insurance

          Insurers are not interested in "causation" only in "correlation" as they are not attempting to determine why something happen only if it will happen. Insurers have therefore found a set of reliable predictors based on correlations in the data from the population they insure.

          If they cannot use these predictors in the future they will a) seek predictors they can use and b) shorten their exposure to un-qualified risk by establishing the shortest period of insurance allowed. Expect to see rolling 30 day (7 day?) policies which reflect any actual (as a replacement for predicted) events in their premium. This limits the exposure to a single event, which need not be a major one, a speeding citation will cause your next month's (week's) premium to multiply 20 fold as you are now demonstrably a greater risk.

          1. Tom Wood

            As I said

            in my first post.

            This is why we have government regulation.

            To an insurer, "fairness" doesn't matter. To an individual, it does.

            As an individual it's fair to price for risk based on factors that can be demonstrated to actually cause risk, but to price based on factors that don't demonstrably cause risk but just happen to correlate to risk for a proportion of the population is not fair to a large number of people who are actually not a high risk but happen to match the risk factors.

            The reason all of this is relevant is because the whole argument seems to be based on some kind of gut feeling of "it not being fair", without any explanation of why it's not fair, which is what this discussion has touched on.

  18. Whitter
    Boffin

    Where does indirect end?

    At what point does correlation of metric "X" with sex / race / disability / religeon or any other legally desciriminator-protected group equate to "indirect discrimination"?

    Does it matter that such a correlation is causual or not, and how would anyone know?

    Laws that attempt to restrict "bad" behaviour are horrid things to implement, even though we know why they are there.

  19. Callum
    Coat

    IT contracts

    with solvency regulation, retail distribution review and now gender based pricing legislation all due for implementation it is going to be happy days for anyone working at retail life & pensions providers.

    >> that's me getting my wallet to add in an extra 50 quid a month into my pension because my life annuity will be worth less.

  20. deshepherd

    @bluesxman

    "Allegedly men tend to do more miles on average.

    More miles = more exposure to other road users = greater chance of an accident."

    Quite probably correct ... that's one of the reasons why some of the coverage yesterday was suggesting we'd have to answer a lot more questions on the sort and amount of driving we do before we'll get a quote.

    BTW, someone else mentioned Sheila's Wheels being discrimantory - actually I think that they will quote for men and in any case most articles I've seen about them indicate that women can normally get a better deal elsewhere! It probably relies on female customers assuming that it is (a) only insuring women and as a result (b) must be giving them a better deal!

    1. Danny 14
      Stop

      nope

      but also crock. More miles = more experience = more chance to read the roads. I have driven close to 1million km. A middle aged gent driving less than 10km per year wouldnt have a 1/4 of my experience. I have never had an accident *that was my fault*. Ive been driven into a couple of times but neither my fault.

      look at the statistics of idiots on the road. I would guess that the majority are inexperienced (white mondeo drivers excepted).

  21. GreyWolf
    Paris Hilton

    Nominative Determinism?

    Is Advocate General Juliane Kokott in her job because she is a tart? Kokott most likely comes from French "cocotte". See definition <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cocotte" target=_blank>cocotte</a>.

    Our sweet Paris is of course a cocotte.

  22. Phil Standen
    Terminator

    Missing the point of the article?

    All the comments about male or female drivers being more costly to insure are missing the point of the article.

    The ruling says that insurance companies are not allowed to exhibit gender bias, so simply asking if you are male or female is not the only restriction.

    If little yellow cars are more often driven by women then the insurance company is no longer allowed to ask if you drive a little yellow car.

    If there are other clustered attributes that discriminate then they also must be excluded.

    If men have more costly accidents then they may no longer be able to ask the cost of your accidents.

    If women have a higher frequency then they may no longer be able to ask the date of your accidents.

    Same with other traffic offences.

    So in summary, the logical conclusion is the if you drive a car you must pay a flat premium.

    I for one welcome our existing overload's new tax on driving.

  23. The Beer Monster
    Joke

    25 years of driving

    And my wife's never had a car accident...

    Mind you, she's seen plenty in the rear view mirror as she's been swerving all over the road whilst putting her lipstick on.

  24. Alan Firminger

    Does this affect the age sensistivity of life insurance ?

    As above.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    What are you talking about?

    "On the surface, this was a victory for equality, a defeat for the insurers"

    I don't know what surface you're looking at but to me it's a blatantly unfair piece of politically-correct ruling in the face of reality. Sexist claptrap by unelected and unaccountable morons in fancy dress. Screw the lot of them.

    1. David Beck
      Thumb Up

      Here, here!

      Don't hold back, tell us what you really think.

  26. Will 28

    Biological vs statistical

    I seem to have missed the point on the confusion about the biology bit (I honestly have, no sarcasm). The statement that accident rates link to gender does not related to a biological difference seems very clear to me. She is saying that there is no medical cause for a man or a woman crashing more than the other. So my being male, in itself, does not make me more likely to crash (medically).

    From this I assume she has concluded that there is no reason to assume that the statistic is a valid measure. If you mined your data enough you might be able to find a stat that said that people that liked apples are more likely to crash. The reason there is such abundant data on gender is that we all have one. The fact that data is skewed in favour of one group does not mean that the gender caused it (hence previous comments from people about causal links).

    You could argue that the fact we have so much data and the result is not 50 - 50 does imply the measure is useful. Then again you would also say "apples make you more likely to crash" if we had enough data on that. you can cut your data in so many dimensions that you might get a significant weighting from any number of groups, it doesn't mean you're right, just that you might have over-mined your data.

    This of course breaks down in the field when insurers find themselves paying out more to men than women. However I cannot (reasonably) change the fact I am male any more than I can change the fact I am white, however one is not allowed, one is (soon to be was). The insurers will need to look harder for a stat I can control that helps capture the risk

    1. david wilson

      @Will 28

      >>"The insurers will need to look harder for a stat I can control that helps capture the risk"

      Why shouldn't they be allowed to include things you *can't* control, if those things are good predictors of risk?

      If someone was cack-handed and easily distracted (whatever the PC terms for those things might be), surely it'd be fair to charge them more if they're a higher accident risk, whether they can change their behaviour or not, whether their behaviours were labelled 'disabilities' or not, and whether there's any correlation with gender or not?

      If driver A was highly aggressive, but could become a much safer driver if they went on a suitable course, and driver B was highly aggressive but wasn't changeable, would it be fair to charge driver A a higher premium if they'd hadn't been on the course, but unfair to charge driver B any extra for being a higher risk?

      >>"However I cannot (reasonably) change the fact I am male any more than I can change the fact I am white, however one is not allowed, one is (soon to be was)."

      Well, I guess as long as where people live has significant correlation with ethnicity, had one or other minority been a particularly good or bad risk, that might well be reflected to an extent in geographically-based pricing even in the absence of any ethnicity questions in the insurance application.

      1. Super Fast Jellyfish
        Joke

        I protest

        As a left handed person at your use of the derogatory term "cack handed", everyone knows* left handed drivers have fewer accidents.

        *this may not be true

  27. Crellin

    Why not?

    Why not base the insurance premium on average distance travelled per annum?

    Why do I suggest this? Thats because female drivers are only less likely to have an accident in a given time period, not in a given amount of geographical distance covered. When you consider distance, the effects change. Under 20, males are about 20% more likely to crash than a female, 20-35 there is no difference, and over 35 the female drivers are statistically more likely to crash in any given distance.

    Surely this would be fairer, men who on average travel less statistically have fewer crashes, and women who travel more statistically have more crashes. So wouldn't a system where you have bands based on average distance be fairer, to both genders?

    How you would go about implementing it I honestly don't know.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Crellin

      "How you would go about implementing it I honestly don't know."

      I believe Aviva already have a policy whereby they fit a tracker to your car. It measures how far you drive and when you drive (though not your speed). People who drive outside of rush-hour, or only to the shops and back can get much cheaper premiums.

      1. The Commenter formally known as Matt
        Badgers

        There was talk of taking this further

        There was talk of taking this idea even further, if you drive on risky roads your premium goes up, the only obvious problem would be if some 'dodgy' areas command higher premiums and they happen to have a large population of a certain minority then this would be considered indirect discrimination.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The obvious, naive answer would be

    to take all incidents, tally the cost, add overhead margin, divide by number of insured, and that's your premium. No questions asked. The only way left for these respectable gamblers to compete would be on reducing the overhead, leaving their profit as a function of how efficient they are at settling and administration and stuff.

    Of course, this won't happen. But ideally, it should. Equallity for all. Maybe I can call this initiative misguided on grounds of insisting on equal outcome, not equal opportunity, even when you (or at least a supposedly learned lawyer in an influential position ought to) know you'll never get it. The road to hell and all that.

    I think we need to come off the notion that discrimination is a dirty word. If that's the case then the knob on metal detectors labeled "discriminator" maybe needs to be labeled "racist", too. And sold in packages with big warning labels announcing it to be an un-pc, racist device. This not because the phenomenon that we're trying to stamp out is any less bad, but because we're deluding ourselves as to what it is, really. So perhaps we'll need to find a more specific word instead of repurposing a generic word for some specific thing, obscuring just how specific that thing is, really.

    The problem is discrimination humans on grounds that have no demonstratable bearing on the subject nor the results to the person. Refusing to serve people in a restaurant because of their skin colour or their sex is something most of us will agree is a silly notion. Refusing to cast a white woman for a film role that calls for a black man is, OTOH, defensible. Even if hollywood script writers have this nasty habit of doing unspeakable things to their source material. But I digress.

    The thing is, this shutting out our fellow human on some silly criterion --And I'll readily admit I have tendencies just as bad that sometimes conciously have to be kept in check; I'm just as fallible a human as (most of) the rest of us.-- is a social mechanism that might even be baked into our "clannish" genes; there's evidence that people without a certain gene also lack the tendency.

    The Advocate General probably was after this disguised as a "valid" statistical technique, just like the measuring of scalps relating to race and religion turned out to be so much scientific bunk. But I think I'll agree she has overdone it a bit, as there are good arguments for proclaiming the statistical techniques to not having risen out of the social tendency.

    That all needn't necessarily validate the statistical techniques --though for better or for worse they've been in use for a while and are generally accepted in the industry-- but at least would invalidate the presupposition that they need to be hit with the "anti-discrimiation" banhammer.

    I think dear ms. Advocate General has some explaining to do.

  29. John Savard

    What is Needed

    In the United States, it is impossible to purchase private health insurance. The only way you can get private health insurance is as a job benefit, although there is a legislated program called COBRA which allows you to keep your employment health insurance, if you pay for it yourself, after you lose your job.

    Why is it impossible? Because several American states had the bright idea of forbidding health insurers from discriminating against people because they were HIV-positive.

    The purchase of insurance is a private transaction between one person seeking insurance and an insurance company, and so the premiums charged should be based on as accurate an assessment of that person's risk as possible, based on all available information.

    Any equalization or redistribution between people with different levels of risk needs to be done by the government through tax-supported programs. Because people don't have to buy insurance, attempting to set unrealistic insurance premiums by law will just destroy the form of insurance affected - if premiums are equal for everyone by law, only members of the highest-risk group will purchase insurance, because the premiums will rise to match their risk.

    People shouldn't be discriminated against because of unfounded prejudices. Insurance companies following sound standards of actuarial practice aren't basing their premiums on irrational bigotry, and so insurance premiums should not be subject to any anti-discrimination laws, provided other laws requiring sound actuarial practice are complied with.

    Common sense needs to be allowed to win out over ideology.

    1. David Beck
      Thumb Down

      What a load of bollocks

      http://www.bcbsnc.com/content/plans/individuals/index.htm

      is the URL of one of the many private health insurers in the US. It is complicated and expensive but it is readily available.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Turned down

    After I changed car from one family estate to another family estate my existing insurers would not re-insure me. No idea why but there you go. Presumably insurers could simply not decline to insure <insert high risk group> without having to state why? How would anybody know. Sheila's Wheels by stealth if you like.

    It's not like they have to publish a list of their clients...

  31. heyrick Silver badge
    WTF?

    If this makes it much further...

    Then by the time I'm old, we'll be able to claim age discrimination so I can get myself medical insurance for the price of a twenty year old (despite plenty of evidence that I'm more likely to conk out expensively).

    But I'm not stupid... what this means is a twenty year old will be able to get medical for the same price as an OAP...

  32. Oliver 7
    Stop

    Madness!

    Let's put aside all the debate around statistics for a minute. I think legislators need to step back and think, very carefully, about what anti-discriminatory legislation is supposed to achieve. The ECJ can only interpret the laws as they are worded and this is what they have done.

    To my mind sexual discrimination (and racial and age discrimination) legislation is supposed to promote equality of opportunity and combat prejudice but I believe it should stop short of requiring that men and women be treated in exactly the same way. Incidentally, by the same token, I believe that this should also mean that so called 'positive discrimination' be outlawed.

    When the insurance business applies statistical probabilities (rightly or wrongly, I'm not getting into that argument) to determine the likelihood of a given person being involved in an accident (and the likely cost of that accident) they are not being discriminatory. They are attempting to make an informed decision based on purely mathematical analysis. As long as Sheila's Wheels or Saga insurance will quote for men or for younger drivers respectively I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to do this, as long as those factors can be shown to be statistically significant.

    The policy intention of discrimination legislation should be to produce fair treatment for all, not to interfere with purely commercial operations that just happen to use demographics - as long as all demographics are catered for.

    1. The Commenter formally known as Matt
      Stop

      positive discrimination

      positive discrimination is already outlawed

      The law does not recognize positive discrimination only discrimination. If anyone is discriminated against, male, female, black or white, they can take legal action against the offender.

      1. Oliver 7

        Enlighten me...

        I seem to recall a fuss about Labour filling a quota of parliamentary candidates with female representatives. Didn't the Met also have some kind of positive discrimination policy? Has this kind of thing since been outlawed?

  33. Trollslayer

    Delibrately misusing the act

    The way this is being misused would also lead to all drivers paying the same regardless of age, location, convictions etc.

    Someone scoring points in the EU here I think.

    In the end we would all lose through this.

  34. Steven Jones

    No end to this...

    "Ultimately, that is the real issue for insurers. They can’t simply exclude inner city areas from insurance, because in today’s UK that would almost certainly result in a degree of indirect racial discrimination."

    How is this different, in principle, from charging different rates for different postcodes? It's surely just a more extreme version. Those paying a higher premium for being in an inner city area might also claim that they are being indirectly discriminated against. If so, would only a member of an ethnic minority be able to claim such discrimination?

    A can of worms indeed.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No problem for the smart insurer

    sheilas wheels insurance WILL cover males but just look at the website - lurid pink "insurance designed with women in mind" handbag cover included. That's going to put a lot of blokes off.

    Going forward they'll presumably have to change their rates for the boys but they don't discriminate against but just target a particular demographic with their advertising. Similarly they might advertise in women's magazines but not in Nuts and Viz.

    On the other hand the 18-25 lads will be giving themselves away with all those adaptations to their vehicles - lowering the suspension, installing under-body lights, replacing the back seats with a sub-woofer, sticking a chrome double exhaust extension on, getting spinning hubcaps. Many insurers already regard these as "notifiable modifications" that invalidate the insurance if not reported and they can weight the premium in response - so they just need to increase the weighting.

    BTW my 18 yo lad (with Pass Plus) was quoted £9k insurance for a lowest group 998cc vehicle. Shopping around got it down to half that, agreeing to a tracker and no driving between 11pm and 6am got it halved again and a sex change would have saved another £1k (he drew the line at that though).

    It has to be said that we're doing it wrong. An 18 yo lad on statutory minimum for a 40 hour week after tax and NI would get just enough to pay that original £9k insurance quote. Even the eventual reduced cost is around 25% of their annual income so of course they're going to buy (steal?) an old banger and drive without tax and insurance. Legal constraints on under 25s like no more than one under 25 passenger, zero alcohol tolerance, would help reduce young drivers accidents (about a quarter of road fatalities involve young drivers - that in itself is unacceptable and the effect on premiums is inevitable) The driver's self preservation instincts lead to reflex decisions that result in it being the passengers that die.

    A pass in an optional second "advanced" test could be used as a basis to offer reduced insurance (like PassPlus was supposed to do but there is no formal test, it does little more than certifiy 6 hours additional driving lessons after passing the driving test.)

    Maybe "age discrimination in insurance" will be the next target of the courts...

  36. Jon 52

    type of car

    I disagree that type of car could become protected on gender bounds.

    As a man I drive a "womens" car (even the toyota yaris ads sell it as such ("her yaris")). I chose this car as it is cheap to insure (and has excellent fuel economy). I have free choice over the type of car and can make that choice, and probably by the fact I make that choice shows I am less likily to cause a high value claim caring more about cost than performance. Where I cannot change my gender to get cheaper insurance (I assume sex change does not matter to insureres?) I can change my car.

  37. Wommit
    Boffin

    A number of people

    still are posting the "I drive ten miles a year and pay more than my wife/girlfriend/SO who drives a million miles a year and has an accident every day!" And "But this man / woman / sloth is paying the same as..." And Insurers should look at the individuals risk.

    Go back to reading the DM. You're lack of understanding of the insurance system is beginning to bore me.

    Do you buy you shirts / shirts from a bespoke tailor?

    No, you by them from a shop which sells to a large number of people. So you get a "STANDARD" item of clothing.

    And just WHAT makes you think that insurance is any different? If you want a cheap insurance deal, you'll go to a company who sells to tens of thousands of people. You'll put up with not having "your" risk calculated for the sake of saving a few quid.

    There are quite a lot of insurers who would just love to insure you PERSONALLY. But it will cost you.

    Just like a made to measure suit will cost a lot more than the off the peg counterpart.

    So, you have your choice go cheap and get an 'off the peg' deal. Go tailored just for you and pay through the nose for it. Your choice.

    So now you can stop whinging that the insurers are cheating you, because THEY aren't assessing YOUR risk. Go to a respectable broker and They'll arrange insurance just for you.

    Also men and women are different. I don't know why, but they are. If you feel that you must make the genders equal then start at the beginning. In the UK 1011 girls are born for every 1000 boys. Start with that. Get the birth rates equal. How are you going to sort that one out?

This topic is closed for new posts.