I think this is kind of silly, but the complaint that premiums will be slightly higher overall doesn’t make sense. The total cost of insuring people hasn’t changed.
The insurance company would ideally like to know exactly which customers will get in accidents and which won’t. If they knew that, they could charge a completely fair price to everyone. But of course, they don’t know exactly who will have accidents, so they make the best guess they can, supported by as much data as possible. This is why they offer discounts to students who get good grades, and to people who have driven for a while without having accidents, and to all sorts of other “good” demographics. If you’re a male driver who happens to be unusually careful, chances are that you’ll fall into some of those good demographics, and so your careful driving will, in fact, be rewarded.
Wouldn’t it rise a bit, though? If it’s now somewhat cheaper for a group of statistically-worse drivers to get insurance, then (marginally) more of those worse drivers are going to buy cars and get on the road. And some margin of good drivers will now decide that insuring a car is too expensive.
That wouldn’t necessarily increase rates. Some people who are driving around without insurance now would now be able to obtain it, which saves everyone else money (though I suspect the number of uninsured drivers is much lower in the EU than in the US).
Possibly. I don’t care.
Insurance rates aren’t based on right or wrong. You can use the power of the government to regulate how insurance companies behave, but when said regulation goes against the actuarial tables it isn’t good for the economy. Not everything that is bad for the economy is necessarily bad policy, some things aren’t great for the economy but are necessary. Obviously people will argue their favored political positions when the time comes. Some people will always advocate for more military expenditure despite its deleterious effects on the economy, and some will always advocate for ever increasing social welfare, regardless of the effects (and of course, both sides typically are mostly devoid of people who will take the position of agreeing that their policies are economically inefficient but worth it.)
Saying insurance companies are engaged in discrimination by setting different rates for the different genders isn’t really a very logical thing to be complaining about. It’s like complaining about women living longer than men (in the aggregate), in first world countries. If the insurance companies business model involved them charging rates based on something other than statistically mainstream actuarial tables, you might be able to say it is some sort of nefarious discrimination. However, the actual practice is just the company reflecting what is said in the data. Unfortunately men don’t like what the data said, and act as though they are being persecuted. But the data is the data, and unfortunately in the EU it’s been decided that instead of using the real data to make their business decisions, insurance companies will have to charge women rates that are artificially higher than what the actuarial tables demand and charge men rates that are artificially lower than what the actuarial tables demand.
However, the reason the total societal cost of insurance would go up is I imagine this decision will mean European insurance companies will just remove gender from their statistical models. This means the model will lose data input and thus become less predictive, total collections of premiums must then go up to cover the greater variance in the results and the higher possibility of incurred losses.
I guess some people might imagine the insurance companies will keep gender as part of their statistical models, and then just simply adjust the premiums “at the end” so that they would be equal amongst males and females. However, I’m not really sure it’s very easy to separate it out like that.
Let’s say using the current models you plug two people in who have exact same data across the board, except their gender. The model says you should charge the male $300 a month and the woman $200 a month, in order to make sure your incurred losses are not greater than what you would expect to collect in premiums.
So I guess all the insurance company has to do to comply with the law is just reduce the man’s insurance premium by $50 and increase the woman’s by $50. But that isn’t how insurance policies actually get written and sold. The insurance company is going to collect information on one individual customer and receive numbers back based on data collected from everyone in the system. If you include gender at all in the model, you have to do some adjust after the fact to balance the rates. How does that work? Whether you adjust after the fact or just remove the variable from the model, it has the same exact effect in practice, in that you’re insuring someone at a rate regardless of a previously usable, provable, and available piece of data on that person. So it makes the model less accurate and thus societal insurance rates would almost have to increase unless we presume insurance companies will simply reduce their profit margins to eat the difference.
It’s actually not gender equality. Gender equality would be treating both genders in the same manner, which is how it was done under the system up until this ruling. Meaning each individual customer would receive an insurance premium based on the actuarial tables.
A meaningless distinction, unless you’re saying if you could define races objectively would you support separate but equal (except in cost) prices for differing races?
That doesn’t making any sense.
If I fill out an insurance app with exactly same data except gender I will get different quotes, true or false?
If true then I’m being penalized for which sperm made it into my egg. Doesn’t matter what I do I get the discriminatory fee.
Just because nature gives men and women differing biology inequalities in some aspects is no reason to extend that to the legal system.
I did not notice this thread when I started a separate one on the same topic. Here’s what I posted there:
The way I look at it there are two distinct but inter-related areas of interest, the moral and the practical. IOW, does our sense of justice require the change in policy, and separately, what is the outcome of the ruling likely to be.
- I can understand the rationale for the ruling, but I think there’s also some inequality that’s always part of life, and you can’t fight it all. So the question is where you draw the line, and why do you draw it there. In the case of insurance, no one is arguing that we need to avoid differentiating by age (although the HCR did limit the extent to which it can be used for health insurance). For the second link above, it appears that the EU ruling is based on a distinction between something that’s “biological” and something that’s not, but even assuming that gender-related pricing is not biology based, that seems like an artificial distinction to me.
But I can see where others might disagree.
- In terms of the impact, I would think it would manifest itself in insurance companies using things that are proxies for gender, directing their marketing at groups that have a high percentage of the preferred gender for the particular line of insurance, but also in consumers adjusting their purchases. In the case of auto insurance, assuming it’s mandatory in Europe like it is in the US, women may not have much discretion. But in the case of pensions, for example, I could see where a man would be advised to look for something more like a 401k rather than an insured annuity for which he will be significantly overcharged. And so on.
The reason the two issues are inter-related is because morality and practicality are always related, and the extent to which you push the boundaries in terms of requiring ever more rigid levels depends on how feasible it is and what the practical outcome is likely to be.
Actuarial tables that make the arbitrary, sexist choice to group people into genders for the purposes of stats. Actuaries *choose *which stats to use for these purposes. There’s no overall imperative to divide along gender lines for driving purposes, other than societal convention.
The ECJ should keep its snout for itself. Men in the EU are quite able to not put their business with companies that are engaging in unfair pricing, if they so desire, without having to be told to do so by some group of unelected people.
Insurance exists to deal with aggregate risk. I am with Rune, this is idiocy, if there is good solid data showing gender differentials that are fundamentally tied to gender, then insurers have every right to price that.
There is nothing “aribtrary” nor “sexist” about grouping people by gender. Nor is it a mere “societal” convention that data show that young male drivers in the aggregate drive like morons. There is deep biology going on their and Leftists idiocy about “convention” merely represents an idiotic form of anti-data anti-science ideology.
It’s already been pointed out, but you can substitute “gender” for “race” in that statement and have the same argument.
Do those supporting the use of actuarial tables based on group risk support different insurance rates by race as well as by gender? Or by religion? Or eye colour?
The trouble with saying “in the aggregate” is that there are many, many people who do not fall into that category. I was not a boy racer. My three brothers were not boy racers. We all started driving at 17 yrs, and have not got a claim between us over a combined 55yrs of driving.
If we have to subsidise boy racers then so should older women (who are in fact one of the highest-risk groups in terms of accidents per mile).
And boy racers driving like idiots is not “deep biology”. There are a whole load of social factors which make certain groups more likely to have accidents.
Middle-class educated 20 y/old males often need to drive less. They can afford to live in cities where they can walk or use public transport. They are less likely to drive as part of their job. They can afford taxis. They have larger houses so can socialise more at home. When they do drive it’s likely to be during the day when they are more awake and when traffic speeds are slower.
Cheaper and better public transport, and more affordable housing in city centres, would mean fewer lower-income young males would need their cars, so they’d drive less and have fewer accidents. Nothing to do with biology.
Gender is based on real biological differences (in the vast majority of cases, but actuarial tables about aggregates, not the exceptions), race is not. Really very simple despite fuzzy headed leftist nonsense.
Were the data clear and not merely proxies for class, yes.
But neither colour nor religion nor race have such attributes.
[ETA: if one were buying insurance for say a specific disease like sickle cell, then colour / ethnicity / race could indeed be relevant, although an insurer should not use crude colour-based analysis, but would have to look at ethnicities from areas of malaria prevalence - current or historical. But one doesn’t normally sell such insurance.]
.
You may simply write then “I have a problem with the concept of Insurance.” Fine don’t but insurance, if the data offends.
Insurance is about AGGREGATES.
One insures risk pools, not individual cases.
Well rather for cost-effective insurance, tailored insurance is only accessible for the wealthy.
And eventually you build up a record and data upon which an insurer can differentiate you. That’s called data.
Until you do so, an insurer has to follow the aggregate in order to stay in business (or rather be able to extend mass insurance to pools of risk).
***If ***insurers can be shown not be risk-adjusting the rates for elderly women, then they should be required to do so. I am not favourable to subsidising dangerous elderly drivers, whose proper solution is mass transit.
Thank you for refuting your own argument.
Of course beyond biology is class and residence. If one is adjusting insurance pricing by factors, one certainly can (and where data permits, should) take into account other factors. The reality, however, is that across multiple cultures it is very clear that young men are substantially more inclined to higher-risk behaviours, to seeking out risk. That is a baseline to be modified by data based, valid actuarial analysis.
Not hand-waved away with sloppy fuzzy Leftist “it’s just like racism” thinking.
If insurance were optional, or offered at low cost by the Govt then maybe. But insurance via a private firm is mandatory if you want to drive in the UK.
Even if that is the case, the futher analysis doesn’t happen. You can only prove in retrospect that you were not a risk, not that you will not be a risk. I gain credit for a no-claims period, but I still accrue a discount based on my age and gender as I get older through no change in behaviour on my part.
So yes, part of my beef is with the way insurance is operated. When I sign up for insurance I am judged on two criteria only: my age and my gender, neither of which I can control, and neither of which are narrow enough to predict my behaviour with any accuracy.
If firms also assessed by level of income, education, spatial awareness, hand-eye coordination, self-esteem, family situation and all the other social factors that make up me as a person then that would be “valid actuarial analysis”.
As it is I’m classed as “male and under 20”, therefore I pay through the nose because some of my peers drive like twats.
I agree it would cost a fortune for firms to do that, but if insurance is mandatory then maybe that’s part of playing in this market. They have a captive market after all.
Optionality is irrelevant. What counts is the insurance scheme can cover the risk.
Irrelevant - I don’t want my funds going to subsidise yet another ill-conceived fuzzy headed scheme. Low cost offer by Government means taxes to subsidise the risk.
That is money better spent on public transport, in the case of auto insurance.
I am well aware of that. And fully supportive of the same. And was as supportive as a young man when I paid through the nose.
Indeed, I am fully supportive of insurance schemes charging for risk regardless, although due to my line of work and geographies where I work, I pay higher than the normal rate.
If the risk-costs are not covered, it’s not sustainable and whatever fuzzy-headed bleeding heart thinking goes on, the schemes collapse.
?
Actuarial science is intends to predict aggregate pools of behaviour so as to cover the cost of claims. It can only be backwards looking, as I know of no way that is objective for anyone to prove future behaviour except by showing a pattern of past behaviour.
Imperfect for the individual, in the aggregate - which is what insurance is all about, aggregate pools to spread cost of risk (ever since it was invented by Scottish Widows) - it’s a reasonable tool.
Well, then simply you’re ignorant. May as well have a beef with biology and the fact we have seasons.
Then come up with something better - but your personal behaviour is not the bloody object, it’s the risk pool’s behaviour. Individually tailored insurance is really really bloody expensive. I’m sure the insurance industry would love to have a cost effective methodology for slicing up risk more.
You’d be whinging on even more about cost were you getting individually tailored insurance, it’s eye-poppingly expensive (as I know from getting insurance on my African activities - small pool there, so really goddamned expensive).
If the firm:
1: has access to proper and valid data - people who whinge on about insurance tend also to lie to insurers, so we’ve got a wee adverse selection problem.
2: can charge a rate that covers the cost of data collection and validation
Then you can get that.
So in short, you want an insurance policy tailored to you. Well be prepared to pay even more, because that sort of thing is really fucking expensive.
Shrug, and if you buy an annuity you get a better deal than a woman typically, because your peers tend to croak.
Life’s not fair, it is lumpy and uneven.
Want government policy support, then more validated data is the answer.