Insurance premiums for young female drivers soar...

Soldato
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It's such a ridiculous concept/fallacy though - when applied to insurance.

- If statistics show women crash less, I don't see why insurers shouldn't be allowed to charge them less.
- If statistics show people called 'Ryan' crash more, I don't see why insurers shouldn't be allowed to charge them more.

That is how the insurance business model works. You charge high-risk people more based on statistical observations. Equality rulings render the whole business model based on risk inept.

If you want true or perfect equality then we would ALL be treated as exactly the same risk and pay exactly the same premium. It's ridiculous.
 
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Soldato
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No you would judge them on an individual basis, as is the case with insurance.

Risk is dictated by other factors other than just gender and age. Insurers previously would just argue that sex carries a stronger weight on risk than other factors.

Of course statistics are based on observations and they do not always imply causality. With gender and car insurance, statistics show very clearly that young female drivers crash less often and make smaller claims when they do. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to explain why statistics reveal this trend, it is painfully obvious.

Of course this isn't fair to those few young lads who drive very carefully and pose significantly less risk but you have to decide as a society whether everyone pays the same (where careful drivers are penalised for riskier drivers) or whether we discriminate on an individual basis. If white people were shown to be more likely to reoffend, perhaps there is a case to take this under consideration (and if the stats were strong there would likely be an underlying explanation as to why) but at the end of the day everyone is unique and there should be other factors considered also.

The Equality ruling is turd and just another interference in an extremely complicated and competitive market.
 
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Associate
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In other news insurance companies profits increase by 100%

Seriously.. Insurance needs to be reduced. More and more I feel there should be a limit on profits these essential services can make.

Problem is motor insurers are not making any profits at the moment. I think latest figures showed that for every £1 collected £1.06 was paid out in claims. Doesn't leave much room for premium reduction in the short term I'm afraid.
 
Soldato
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Exactly. I approve of this change.

You are not allowed to profile based on race, why should sex be any different?

Then why should age be any different?

This is the point I'm trying to make. Where do you draw the line? You'd eventually get to a point where we all pay the same premium, in which case equality has made it perfectly fair and perfectly unfair simultaneously.
 
Associate
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Then why should age be any different?

This is the point I'm trying to make. Where do you draw the line? You'd eventually get to a point where we all pay the same premium, in which case equality has made it perfectly fair and perfectly unfair simultaneously.

I don't know where you draw it, but I recognise there has to be one. It currently seems to be defined by discrimination law.

Would you support insurers profiling based on race? after all a young asian male living in Bradford is 100000% more likely to be involved in a 'crash for cash' scam than a young white guy living in the same place.
 
Soldato
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Problem is motor insurers are not making any profits at the moment. I think latest figures showed that for every £1 collected £1.06 was paid out in claims. Doesn't leave much room for premium reduction in the short term I'm afraid.
Just because they pay out more in claims than they receive doesn't mean they make a loss, as they don't just put the money under a pillow!

Many of the big insurance companies are making good profits.
 
Soldato
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I didn't mind it the other way as it is true I'm more likely to remove my car from the road at high speed vs wendy parking her car and hitting another car.

People moaning about the cost of driving too.....driving isn't supposed to be a human right is it? No doubt they can't afford insurance as they want a brand new car too. Shame that.
 
Soldato
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Equality should mean equality.

You couldn't charge someone more or less based on their race, in fact, you'd be just about stoned to death for even suggesting that data should be collected based on race (whatever the actual facts are), so why was collecting data based on sex fine for all those years? Either everyone stops whining and lets facts decide, or equality should be enforced with no exceptions.

Also, I think we all knew this would happen.

Quite agree with this.

People should all be treated the same. Every person (whether male/female/black/white ...) should be treated equally and pay comparable prices. If an individual proves they are a danger on the road then that individual should be penalised and have their prices increase. It shouldn't be all about statistics, because as we all know 47% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Every time I saw that advert for Sheila's Wheels, I got irritated. From what I've seen over the years, the only thing that makes women drivers *safer* is that they all seem to drive 10 miles an hour below the speed limit, and in doing so hold up all the traffic on the road. It's no wonder people try to find a space to overtake them.

Additionally, and from personal experience, out of the last 1/2 dozen or so people that have pulled out on me on my motorbike (while I was doing the speed limit and wearing reflective gear) and almost sent me over their bonnets, 90% of them were women drivers. The other 10% are old people. Fortunately, I've obviously become so accustomed to this that as soon as I see a female driver or old person at a junction, I start preparing for the inevitable.

Heaven forbid I ever come across an OAP female driver at a junction ... I don't stand a chance! :p
 
Soldato
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This is really a moral choice that society has to make. It's statistically valid to charge more to a young male driver than a young female driver, so it's just whether we want to allow that discrimination or not. It's a sliding scale from highly detailed actuarial decisions based on all the facts and fixed-price insurance for all.
 
Caporegime
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I have to say that insurance should be able to charge on statistics. You can't do case by case here.

If we all had to pay for medical insurance I wouldn't want to pay the same as some morbidly obese person.

If women have less accidents I think it's fair to charge less

My insurance is good this year. 500 on my s2000. Dunno if this has made a difference
 
Soldato
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I have to say that insurance should be able to charge on statistics. You can't do case by case here.

If we all had to pay for medical insurance I wouldn't want to pay the same as some morbidly obese person.

If women have less accidents I think it's fair to charge less

My insurance is good this year. 500 on my s2000. Dunno if this has made a difference
Would you want the obese person to have to pay so much, it became disproportionate and unfairly unaffordable for them?
 
Soldato
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Would you want the obese person to have to pay so much, it became disproportionate and unfairly unaffordable for them?

A lot of obese people are obese because of their own lifestyle choices, therefore they should pay more.

The same reason why smokers should have to pay more for life insurance. They're more likely to die of lung cancer amongst other things.
 
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Soldato
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I think it's likely this will lead to a lot of women moving to insurers that use those black-boxes that monitor speed, braking etc. That way, their premium shouldn't be that different.
 
Soldato
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e·qual·i·ty/iˈkwälitē/
Noun:
The state of being equal, esp. in status, rights, and opportunities

dis·crim·i·na·tion/disˌkriməˈnāSHən/
Noun:
The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

Think people are getting confused. Insurance companies are not discriminating by charging men more. In fact they are discriminating against women now, saying "although your less of a risk pay more, because your a woman"

Insurance companies are not being unequal by saying "Your a women, your less of a risk, pay less." they are being unequal by saying "Your a women, pay your risk + xx%" and "Your a man, your a bigger risk but to a women is paying for some of your risk so pay less"

Mens prices = their risk
Womens prices = their risk

That is equal, not mens prices = womens prices.

It is totally daft and makes no sense.
 
Soldato
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And a lot of them aren't. Discriminating against people because of their size/colour/gender/sexual preference/religion/anything else you care to think of is just wrong.

Sometimes in life you have to accept that you're unlucky or whatever and just move on. We're not equal. Equality is an ideological fallacy. We were not all born the same, some people are more intelligent than others, some people are physically stronger. Saying everyone is the same is ridiculous.

In order for some things to work in society, you have to accept sacrifice to some degree. There would be no medical insurance if insurance companies were not allowed to discriminate because it wouldn't be profitable and no one would bother paying the premiums; except extremely high-risk customers, hence the business model wouldn't work.

Car insurance... Race, fine. Sex, well I personally think the EU proposals are absolutely ridiculous but it's open to debate I guess. Age: It doesn't make sense to say you can't discriminate by age because there is a direct and irrefutable correlation between old age and accident risk. It would be god damn madness if the EU forced car insurance companies so that they can't claim an elderly OAP of 90 years old behind the wheel is less likely to cause carnage than a fit and healthy 35 year old woman.

FACT: The EU ruling is bonkers because anyone who has an IQ greater than a kettle knows that women drivers are - GENERALLY - far less likely to be involved in dangerous collisions than men. Now because of the EU and the ideas and opinions of, in my opinion, a bunch of morons, the female population in this country are all being punished because some little wise-crack thinks it's unfair that men as a whole should accept that they should pay more because the average man is a higher-risk driver than the average woman. God, it angers me so much just typing this.
 
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Soldato
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A lot of obese people are obese because of their own lifestyle choices, therefore they should pay more.

The same reason why smokers should have to pay more for life insurance. They're more likely to die of lung cancer amongst other things.
So you would support the deconstruction of the NHS and the creation of an insurance-based health contribution?
 
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