EU ECJ bans gender
discrimination in car insurance
1 Mar 2011
by Donald MacKenzie
Despite good arguments against it, not least actuarial evidence from
billions of accidents worldwide, the European Court of Justice has
today ruled that gender discrimination in the calculation of car insurance premiums must cease as of 21 December 2012.
Leading women's car insurance specialist provider Sheilas' Wheels has
argued that their brand will survive partly because calculation of
acturial risk has not been outlawed and non-gender based
risk-assessements will still prevail.
In reality, however, if insurance companies are no longer allowed to
take gender into account when calculating the car insurance premium,
then men and women will be treated equally, pushing up the premium for
young women especially, potentially, by several thousand pounds.
Similarly, men over 60, that are lower risk drivers than women over 60,
will also find themselves paying more.
The big winners from this, of course, will be young male drivers under
25 years of age. They will see substantial drops in the cost of their
cover now that low risk young female drivers will be treated as part of
their high risk group.
If young men are the winners from this ECJ gender discrimination
ruling, older men are the losers, not just because of the increased car
insurance cost for over 60s but because the ruling also effects
annuities.
At present men are paid more than women from annuities because they
don't live as long. The ECJ
gender discrimination ruling will also outlaw these differential gender
payments, effectively discriminating against men by, overall, paying
them less.
So, a European court with the word 'Justice' in its title has decided
that it is just to treat low risk women drivers as high risk and to
deprive men of some of their hard-earned pension. Yes, there are
conter-arguments, but it's hard to argue that the above changes are an
improvement on the current sensible and reasonable arrangements.
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