Women drivers get equality!

[Scooter]

I don't think those sorts of determinations are difficult to make at all. People who apply for health insurance have to complete lengthy questionnaires whose answers are used to quantify the amount of risk they pose and the premium they should be charged. There is nothing stopping auto insurers from doing the same thing, and the penalty for lying can be exactly the same - if you are caught, you lose your coverage.

[Gob]

Are you male?
Are you 17 years old?
Are you a bad driver or a great driver or the next formula one champ?
Do you regularly speed, (10 kmph over the limit, 20 kmph over the limit? 50-100 kmph over the limit?)?
Have you driven while intoxicated/stoned/druged up to the eyeballs/pissed off your face?
Do you sometimes "forget" to wear your seatbelt?
Do you drive a souped up Holden Commodore (white)?
Do you drive with car fulls of mates, who egg you on to do more and more stupid things?
How long are your best burnout skidmarks?
At some point in the next three years will you do any of the above?

[Scooter]

Not necessarily that minute level of detail, but you got the idea.

I once dealt with an insurance company that wanted to charge me a higher premium because my car was red. How did I come to own a red car? Because a few years earlier, my partner was looking at used cars, saw five previous model year Nissan Sentras on the lot, two white and three red, and decided on a red one because white would show the dirt too much. Doesn't matter that neither my partner originally, or I by inheriting it, had any specific design to buy a red car; red cars were known to get into more accidents and therefore by owning one I must obviously be a higher risk driver. What if I painted the car blue, I asked the insurance agent. Doesn't matter, he said, if it's red when you take ownership of it, you are identified as a "red car driver" and will so remain so long as you own the car. What if, I said, instead of inheriting it directly from my partner's estate, I use my powers as executor to sell it to my father, get it painted blue, and then buy it from him? Then you wouldn't be taking ownership of a red car so the premium wouldn't be as high, was his answer. I hung up and called another company.

Moral of the story - if insurance companies have enough time on their hands to calculate the risk of owning a red car vs. a blue one, then they sure as hell are capable of differentiating based on any other seemingly nitpicking characteristic they can identify as contributing to risk.

[loCAtek]

Shoot, insurances companies have higher rates for vehicles that are colored RED, it does seem arbitrary.

[Jarlaxle]

Is there something genetic about being a male that predisposes men to be worse drivers than women?

Yes: Testosterone & the rampant stupidity of teenaged boys!

[Jarlaxle]

Are you male?
Are you 17 years old?
Are you a bad driver or a great driver or the next formula one champ?
Do you regularly speed, (10 kmph over the limit, 20 kmph over the limit? 50-100 kmph over the limit?)?
Have you driven while intoxicated/stoned/druged up to the eyeballs/pissed off your face?
Do you sometimes "forget" to wear your seatbelt?
Do you drive a souped up Holden Commodore (white)?
Do you drive with car fulls of mates, who egg you on to do more and more stupid things?
How long are your best burnout skidmarks?
At some point in the next three years will you do any of the above?

Yes.
Not lately.
Professional driver, about 750,000 miles on the road. Two tickets (13 years apart), no at-fault wrecks.
Yes...75-77 on the highway.
Never.
No.
No, I drive a souped-up Cadillac (black).
No.
About 30 metres by your measurements. :p
Probably not.

[Long Run]

I agree with Scooter. In an environment where we do not allow most businesses to discriminate based on gender, why are insurers allowed to use this short-hand. The reality is that within the young men pool, there is some minority, say the bottom 10%, that is the problem. On the young women side, the accident causers may be the bottom 4%. Rather than discriminate against 90% of the young men (or whatever the number is), it makes sense the insurance companies find rational factors such as the "good student" discount, to separate the high risk young drivers of either sex from the moderate risk from the low risk.

There are certain ethnic groups that right or wrong have the reputation for being lousy drivers, but we would never allow them to be categorized as bad drivers because of their race or culture. Why is gender different?

[Gob]

Thinking about it, everyone deserves a first chance, maybe it should be a case of everyone starting at the lowest economically viable level of premium, then greatly more punitive levels for those who drive culpably.

Or would that just lead to more driving uninsured?

BTW do you know that in Aus your (compulsory) car registration also gives you third party cover?

[Big RR]

In most (if not all) US states you are required to obtain insurance from a private insurer before you can register your car.

[Jarlaxle]

...which is why so many people drive unregistered, uninsured shitboxes, but that's another rant.

[rubato]

So it is ok for females to pay higher health insurance during their fertile years because they are liable to get knocked up and cost thousands for childbirth and pediatric care and then they should pay more during the menopause years since they will have fibroids and need a hysterectomy?

Of course that would be completely fair.

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Ok, that's fine, but it still doesn't solve anything.

The car accident death rate for teen male drivers and passengers is more than one and a half times female teen driver

And if teen males on average drive 1.5 times as much as females, then it is the amount of time behind the wheel, and not the sex of the driver, that is actually the cause of the increased risk. So males who drive little would be unfairly subsidizing females who drive a lot.

Having Male teen passengers in the car has been shown to increase the likelihood of high risk driving behaviors among teenage male drivers.

If having male teen passengers in the car is the risk factor, then male teen drivers who carry no passengers are unfairly subsidizing those who do carry passengers.

Of Male drivers killed between 15 and 20 years of age 38% were speeding and 24% had been drinking and driving.

Presumably females who drink and/or speed are just as likely to get into accidents as males who drink and/or speed. So males who neither drink nor speed should not be forced to pay higher premiums than females who do drink and/or speed.

You've made some good points. However, whether males drive 1.5 times or 15 times more often than females, the fact is that males get into more accidents - it doesn't matter "why" they do. As a class, which is how premiums must be assessed, "males" are more risky than "females" - not because they are male perhaps but because they drive more maybe. You could be right on that. Of course in any class you will find people who've had two accidents and people who have had none - you'll also find that the first will pay a higher premium than the second, regardless of sex (which of course may have caused an accident or two).

It is not correct to say that the "good" male is subsidising the "bad" female (or vice versa)- there is no relation at all. You may say that "good"female drivers are subsidising "bad" female drivers - the premium represents an average over the class but doesn't inlcude those outside the class for rating purposes.

It's true too that really careful teenagers are penalised in premium for the performanc of the class known as "teenagers".

But of course, every insured person who is "good" may be said to be penalized by all those who are "bad" - so there's no point in the argument really. Now if it were possible to identify (in advance) that man A would never have an accident in his life, then man A perhaps could be given some special kind of rate (actually he is, retrospecitively). However, there is no known calculation which can give certainty that because I never run a red light I never will run a red light.

The EU judgement is full of absolute crap.

Regards
Meade

[Big RR]

OK Meade, but who decides what is a valid distinction and what is not? Again, if insurers were to come forward with actuarial data that showed some racial/ethnic/religious group had more accidents than the others, I doubt EU law would permit differential premiums recognizing this. Why is gender (or age for that matter) different?

[Crackpot]

I got rear ended today by a girl at the drive through.

[MajGenl.Meade]

OK Meade, but who decides what is a valid distinction and what is not? Again, if insurers were to come forward with actuarial data that showed some racial/ethnic/religious group had more accidents than the others, I doubt EU law would permit differential premiums recognizing this. Why is gender (or age for that matter) different?

I don't think there is such data - but if there had been (back in the day when nobody cared about such niceties) I'm sure that "white" drivers would have paid more than say "brown drivers" - because white drivers had more accidents. Who knows? The fact is that there is no known correlation of race/ethnicity/religion to auto accidents. There is a known correlation between male drivers x accidents and young drivers x accidents. Those groups have a range of premium which starts lower than the high end women's premium (and no jokes about that pulllleeeease) but reaches ceiling much higher. Within the male group, teenagers are going to pay more (proportionately) than I would for the same coverage - but they tend to go with state minimum liability only - cheaper than I'd pay for comprehensive w/two drivers etc. Statistics now are tending toward higher premiums for way-old farts because, as a group which used to be low-risk, they are now higher risk. The reason is as Scooter pointed out - more oldsters driving means more driving into other vehicles in parking lots etc.

The second point to be made is that the beneficiaries of this system are women - as a class. They have a lower premium range - although individuals within the range may pay a lot more than men in the lower end of the male range - depends upon individual driving/claims record.

Men are not "penalized" - they simply pay the premium to cover the cost of the accident claims in their class.

If we say "the human class" then I expect insurance companies will find a way to charge women more and not do very much about men at all. Just bring them all up to the same higher rate

Cheers
Meade

[Big RR]

The fact is that there is no known correlation of race/ethnicity/religion to auto accidents.

and my point is that, even if there were, it would be illegal to charge different premiums based on race. For example, from what I have seen, the average life span of an African American is less than a white person, but I have never heard that insurers charge different (higher) rates to African Americans to account for this; indeed, I do not think it would be legal to do so.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Big RR - oh but they did! http://www.insure.com/articles/lawsuitl ... tlife.html

December 2009:

Prudential Insurance Co. of America and Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. are facing potential class action lawsuits that allege they charged blacks higher life insurance premiums than whites and sold them policies with inferior benefits.

The two insurers are the latest to be accused of charging race-based premiums for burial policies — which are sometimes called industrial, intermediate, monthly debit ordinary, home service, or debit policies. Burial policies cover funeral expenses when an insured dies. These policies generally have small face values (less than $1,000). Similar lawsuits are pending against Atlanta Life Insurance Co., Liberty National Life Insurance Co., Life Insurance Co. of Georgia, Monumental life Insurance Co., Mutual Savings Life Insurance Co., and United Insurance Co. of America.

So if the parallel is direct, you are quite right. This was to do with those burial policies which provide a smaller beneift than the premiums collected.

On the other hand, I think that if a class of persons is a higher risk than another class of persons, then the first should pay more in premium for the same coverage (not for lesser). This is discrimination in the proper sense of the word - choosing between risk factors in order to achieve a balanced premium. Insurance companies are not supposed to be communist egalitarians. Home insurance premiums in Twinsburg OH are (all other things being equal) lower than they are in downtown Cleveland because there is a greater risk in the intner-city - just ask anyone who lives there. The same goes for car insurance - the further out one lives from the city, the lower the rate because cars are less often stolen, trashed, set on fire and otherwise damaged in Twinsburg OH than they are in Akron OH.

There is a county in (I believe it was West Virginia) where comprehensive car insurance costs more, quite a long way from the city, because cars there have a habit of mysteriously burning when loan payments are past due.

All of this speaks to non-brain induced legislation which says that HIV positive results should be no bar to equal health / life insurance premiums. It is exactly the same as declaring that if a person's house is actually burning down before their very eyes, they should be allowed to pick up a cellphone and insure that house without let or hindrance.

All factors that increase (or decrease) risk should be allowed for consideration of premium - and women should continue to enjoy lower rates (remember that there is considerable overlap from bad to good in both male and female premiums) for auto insurance solely because they are, as a class, less of a drain on insurance dollars.
(Note that as women become increasingly like men anyway, wrestling, farting and drinking to excess, it is likely that premium ranges will shift anyway to reflect what we like to call "reality")

Cheers
Peter

[Big RR]

Meade--I don't know those cases directly, but other insurers have settled similar suits which alleged that they discriminated against african americans by selling them these policies at inflated rates; I don't think any has ever said upfront that the differential premiums were based on actuarial data,although I imagine they would make that argument now as a defense. I still think it would not stand up as a valid distinction.

[dgs49]

There is nothing "wrong" with an insurance company charging higher life insurance premiums to a population that tends to live relatively shorter lives. My mother died of a heart attack when she was 51. There was a time when that information came up when I was buying term life, and my premiums would have been higher (I chose not to buy it at the time).

Nor is it surprising that the total premiums paid over a lifetime for a "burial" policy might exceed the value of the policy. You are not talking about whole life, you are talking about term life. I'm sure many, many people pay out more in auto insurance premiums than they ever collect in claims.

My grandmother (father's mother) was always proud of the fact that she had maintained a burial policy, keeping up the (weekly) premiums even when times were tough. The face value of the policy was $250. I believe the agent actually picked up the premiums in her home, at least for the first few years.

[loCAtek]

I got rear ended today by a girl at the drive through.

I got hit by an old man, Tuesday.