Hear, hear. My premium dropped when I turned 25. I only started driving at 21. Why do I get a lower premium than a 24-year-old who has been driving since they were 17?

You shouldn’t, but no-one has taken a case based on that yet so until they do insurance companies will be fine.

Statistical outcomes are only true for groups as a whole, they say absolutely nothing about the individual who may lie anywhere along the bell curve and has an unknown chance of being an outlier.
This is essentially the definition of, and problem with, discrimination. Discrimination assumes that an individual embodies the perceived (or indeed actual, the truth is entirely irrelevant as they are only true for the group in general) characteristics of the group as a whole.

To use a controversial, but appropriate, example; if it were true that black people commit more crime than other groups, a security company would not be justified in using that statistic as a reason to frisk black people on entry, as this would also harm innocent individuals who are not criminals and do not embody the characteristics of their group. Similarly, it is not justified to use crash statistics to charge men more, as it puts men at a disadvantage by assuming they will crash, when in fact individual men may be extremely safe drivers.
Individuals are not statistics, unfortunately that is the basis on which insurance works; it is inherently discriminatory and it will be interesting to see how it holds up in the face of increased scrutiny from cases like this. I predict that we will see more “advanced driving courses” and whatnot, stuff where they can assess the competency of the individual on his or her own merits.

Spot on

Just go to a barber!

Go to the barbers, they won’t refuse you.

its all about equality men and women should be treated the same..women were oppressed for years now finally we are going to be getting closer to being treated the same

Sure, and lets get male pattern baldness to be less sexist too!

I think this should be done statistically, young male drivers crash more. Gender is as big an indicator as age. But you don’t see anyone shouting ageist. This is a technicality and over the top political correctness and everyone knows it.

For some reason the pro-discrimination side on this debate, seem to be under the illusion that the issue is disagreement with the statistics. I don’t disagree with them, or care about them at all, the point is understanding that individuals are not represented by statistics.
It wouldn’t matter if 100% of crashes were caused by men because that wouldn’t mean that 100% of men cause crashes.

Well aside from sitting next to you every time you get in a car the insurers have no other way. By generalising some good drivers get screwed over but as a 20 year old male. Propose an alternative that let’s me prove I don’t drive like an idiot and I’m all for. If you’re going to make everything even by gender you have to donor by age too. If you’re a 40 year old male driver are you willing o have your premium go up in the name of equality? Which some people are now defending so strongly.

Do it by age too* sorry autocorrect. Journal please add an edit button…. Even if people can see the previous comment after you change it…. Makes life easier :(

Thank God I didn’t have that sex change!

Statistical correctness really. Risk assessment should not be based on broad (and therefore incorrect for many individuals) generalisations, particularly when there are so many better ways of doing it. This holds true for insurance inasmuch as it holds true for law enforcement or education.
In all cases it would be infinitely easier to use statistical generalisations, but it would be unjust.

Though if the market is openly competitive, all other things being equal it should mean a reduction in premia for men.
It won’t change the level of claims, more premiums rasied from women, therefore a competitive operator should have scope to reduce premiums.

Exactly. Imagine there were statistics to show that black people commit more crime than white people (there are, in certain places, they make up a disproportionate amount of the US prison population for example); would that make it acceptable for police to survey, search, or harass them based on a statistical likelihood? Of course not.

Anyone who understands statistics understands that they apply only to groups, they speak only about those groups, they do not necessarily apply to individuals and to treat individuals as if they do leads to you following Barack Obama around the spar to make sure he doesn’t steal anything.

Statisticians are racist?

Here’s a suggestion, insure the car and not the driver. This will remove discrimination, lower prices and make it much easier for young drivers to afford to start driving independently. The Dutch have a vehicle-based insurance system and it works like a charm.

MathsDebater your perception of statistics is incorrect,to create statistical bias one needs to have a statistically significant sample size,hence actuaries group rating factors based on predictability. We therefore define “groups”, but don’t worry individual premiums are on the way through telematics

Maths Debater… In this case your sample size out of the entire population is obviously not representative ..nothing wrong with using sample stats if it’s done correctly…

@Pauric Mcgowan

You can lower or increase the sample size all you want, make it as representative and rigorous as you want, however you will not eliminate outliers, which is my point.

They call it an outlier for a reason.. Usually some form of factor,relationship or interaction has not been considered . Given the nature of these things ,this is obviously difficult…Take a sample, considering all the factors known and you will have a pretty High confidence you are capturing the majority of the population.What’s your proposal ‘Maths debater’?

They will be increasing womans premiums, they won’t bring down the cost of insurance because there is so much money to be made. We have a closed market in Ireland controlled by three or four big companies which is ridiculous! Now that the insurance companies are gonna make more money on the back of premium increases they should bring down premiums slightly for both sexes, but as always, we won’t ask questions, just pay the over priced premium.

Aren’t there loads of companies writing motor insurance business in Ireland?

If so this should mean that mens’ premiums should come down.

kAREN YOU ARE RIGHT WATCH WOMENS INSURANCE GO UP

Thanks for that Shanners, we’ll look into that. S

Thanks :-)

Shanners, welcome to RSA statistics.

It was deemed unconstitutional, not illegal.

Surely “that’s how insurance works” isn’t really an argument, just because it’s been done before doesn’t make it right. Car insurers used gender to differentiate out of laziness, because motor insurance industry is a legally necessary good and therefore they didn’t have to improve their business model. Like most necessary goods, it requires some government regulation to keep it fairly accessible, and all this legislation will do is force car insurers to use other methods like advanced driver courses and black box testing to assess, something they would have done years ago in a free market.

if thats the case then they should already be paying higher premiums…….

Hi Stephen, the link to the information note? It should be – I just tried it there again and it’s working for me. If you have more trouble, it is also here: http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/20121030%20ConsumerInfoNote_Unisex%20insurance.pdf/Files/20121030%20ConsumerInfoNote_Unisex%20insurance.pdf
Cheers, Susan

It’s not working through the I phone app for me. The new one worked, thanks