How can car insurers legally discriminate people on the grounds of age, gender and occupation?

Question

I would like to see car insurance dependant on the personality and driving attitudes of the individual rather than statistically dependant.
What do you think?

Answer 1

i think its wrong that car insurance companies charge you higher premiums if you are a young male , of course its descrimination . im a 27 year old hgv driver ( and i hold a pcv licence so i have had a lot more driver driver training than someone who just works behind a desk in an office yet their premiums are lower than mine and i drive approx 50,000 accident free miles a year!!!! ) . imagine the fuss if insurance companies come out and started charging ethnic minorities more for their premiums if it was found that they are at greater risk behind the wheel ???
and before you start to say im racist im using that as an example just to show how unfair the system is and that it assumes that everyone of a certain age group is a high risk behind the wheel .

Answer 2

That's impossible. And it's not discrimination by the way. So when you call for a quote, the company disregards your tickets and accidents and instead asks "Are you a positive or negative person? Are you likely to be involved in road rage? Are you a safe driver? Do you see driving as a privilege or an entitlement? Do you always use your turn signal?"

Then in the meantime some actuary does some research and that indicates that the personality and attitude has nothing to do with a person's likelihood of being in an accident or getting a ticket, so everyone pays the same in the end anyway? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm going to call my state legislature and see if they can influence the insurance department to change the rating systems of hundreds of insurance companies because what do a bunch of numbers mean anyway?

Answer 3

Discrimination is often illegal. However, if discrimination favours a 'minority' then it's often deemed to be Positive Discrimination which is rarely illegal and in many cases is encouraged.

On the surface, motor insurance appears to be favourable towards the elderly and women drivers and on that basis is positive discrimination.

In reality however, elderly and women drivers are in fact discriminated AGAINST. Here in the UK the average male driver drives 16,000 miles a year, the average female drives about 7,000 miles a year and the average elderly driver about 6,000 miles a year. On this basis it should attract discounts of approx 55% for females and 60% for the elderly (before any no-claims discount is taken into account). In reality the discounts offered to female and elderly drivers are in the region of 20%.

In other words, on the basis of number of miles driven the elderly and female drivers are paying a substantially higher premium.

It's not politically correct to state this but elderly and female drivers are more likely to be involved in, or be the cause of, accidents and therefore premiums are weighted accordingly.

In calculating a premium insurance starts at a baseline and then bumps up the premium based on location, type of vehicle, experience, age, occupation, claims and convictions history, age, gender, annual mileage etc.

It's similar with house insurance - there is premium loading to take account of high crime areas, larger properties, valuable contents etc and discounts based on installed security systems, neighbourhood watch areas etc.

By and large insurance premiums are fair as they assess the potential of a claim and it's likely cost based on the analysis of millions of claims over the years. Changes to the system would be beneficial to some but would penalise others.

Answer 4

Insurance is one of the most watched and regulated industries for just this very reason. insurers are not allowed to discriminate, and if they do the government will know. there are a multitude of different agencies that certain pieces of data must be reported to with every policy and claim, and these independent agencies (some gov't, some not) monitor this sort of thing. they are, however, allowed to adjust rates based on statistical data. While sometimes it may feel unfair to you what you are being charged, your rate was not grabbed out of the air but rather based on years and years of statistics given your insurance "profile," or the data the insurance company feels is important to get you a good rate quote.

The best way to save money is to get quotes from different companies, as different companies will feel one factor in your profile is more important than another, and will adjust the rate because of it.

Credit score adjustments are not allowed in all states for the very reasons above, but again, this is just another piece of data being built into the statistical model made when you get your insurance quote. insurers have found that credit score strongly correlates to risks and they will use that piece of statistical data for all it's worth

Answer 5

This not about unlawful Discrimination, but risk assessment. Insurance companies are not out to do you a service (and some DO seem to be in a pact with the Devil...). They are out to make profits, and so would like to minimise the risks they take on.

It is also a statistical fact (for example) that young men (18-25) tend to have more and worse road accidents, for a variety of reasons, not all to do with personality.

Answer 6

It would be very nice for individuals and totally awful for insurance agencies if they did that. Statistics tend to make the best judges of character among strangers. The reason that it's legal and that it isn't considered discrimination is that, in a game like the insurance business, statistics are the only way to win.

The grounds for discrimination that really upset me are the credit score grounds. Mine is nice. I'm lucky. I still don't think my inability to pay a previous debt should raise my insurance premium. In fact, I think this criterion unfairly compounds poverty by punishing people who have been behind on their bills in the past by making them more likely to be behind on their bills today.

Answer 7

drivers get rewarded for not claiming etc. Beyond that personaltiy (being personal) and driving attitudes (being rather open to debate) give rise to much greater discrimination. Statistics are more accurate and are based on fact not fiction. Young drivers have a hard time because they must prove themselves but by the time they are in their early thirties their car insurance will be very very cheap.

Answer 8

How can insurance quotes be based on personality and driving attitudes? Take a questionnaire? The metrics insurance companies use are indicative of the likelihood of a driver being a safe driver. I don't think it's discrimination.

Answer 9

The legislation only applies to employment not to criminals or people like Insurance companies who rip folk off.
I apologise to the honest Insurance Companies but I paid Norwich Union a lot of extra cash so I had driving other vehicle s on my policy and they changed it removing this facility.
I now have insurance with a reputable company with driving other cars for only 60% of what Norwich Union wanted to charge me. After 30 years as a Norwich Union customer I aint anymore.
I got off the point here but clearly I am not suggesting Norwich Union are likely to be the best company to insure with.
I can thus accept no liability for any unnescesary diminution of wealth arising from transactions relating to Norwich Union, and I completely refute any suggestions that I am a satisfied customer of the afore mentioned Norwich Union.

Answer 10

It is near impossible to meet with a person and determine their risk factors for poor driving. It has to be based on what it's presently based on because they are trackable statistics that let the insurance company know they will make money and not be paying off on policies of conservative looking speed demons.

However there are some companies that will make allowances for good grades, good driving records and things like that.

Good Luck with finding a good company. They are all in partnership with the devil in some way I think. (That was a joke).