I read with intrest that European law will soon make it illegal for insurance companies to give discounts to female drivers under the sex discrimination act!.
What are your viewson this subject?

It's an interesting subject - equality being imposed when there's a lot of clear evidence to show that women are better drivers.

So what next then? Young drivers in Porsches in Darnall doing 50,000 miles for the same rate as a lady in her 50's in Dore doing 5,000 miles in her Polo?

Irrespective of the rights or wrongs of whether or not the discounts for women drivers should be discontinued you just know that the insurance companies will use this as an opportunity to raise premiums. By all means take away the discounts but can you see the insurers using the extra income to lower all premiums? Didn't think so.

btw I've just renewed my insurance and by adding my spouse, who doesn't have a full driving licence only a provisional, my premium went down by £60. :confused: On a 2.3 kompressor capable of lots of mphs fgs. I asked them to confirm that it would be OK for her to drive it with 'L' plates and they said yes, both when I originally asked for a quote and then when I rang to confirm.

So, if you see a merc with 'L' plates give me a wave. :wave:

it does seem a bit strange to call it discrimination when it's based on statistics rather than bias. Maybe they will just have to prove that, there are some companies that currently will only take women, which i always thought was a bit unfair.

The trouble is that statistics can prove anything. On the face of it, men have more accidents than women.

But, if you delve a bit deeper, you then see that there are more men on the roads than women and there are far more women insured under their partner / husband.

It would be interesting to see that out of 100 men and 100 women, what percentage have had accidents.

the insurance companies have no axe to grind. They aren't being sexists, they are just being pragmatic, they can offer women cheaper car insurance because as a % women with their own insurance make claims of a lower value for a given group size.

So either women have less accidents, claim less, or have accidents which cost less. It doesn't matter if that's because 20% of women only drive to take the kids to school, it doesn't matter if it's because women are better or if it's because women are so timid they never take a risk. It's a fact.

They'd be incredibly stupid companies if they were manipulating the figures as they'd effectively be doing themselves out of profit.

Originally posted by max


btw I've just renewed my insurance and by adding my spouse, who doesn't have a full driving licence only a provisional, my premium went down by £60. :confused: On a 2.3 kompressor capable of lots of mphs fgs. I asked them to confirm that it would be OK for her to drive it with 'L' plates and they said yes, both when I originally asked for a quote and then when I rang to confirm.



You gotta be insane:loopy: :loopy: :D

My insurance came down by almost £500 this year for the same car. I'm not complaining - but was I paying too much in the first place?

my insurance goes down when i add the other half.

Originally posted by hotphil
It's an interesting subject - equality being imposed when there's a lot of clear evidence to show that women are better drivers.

But if women are better drivers than men, their premiums should get lower anyway as there will be fewer claims on their insurance. They should base their premiums on individual cases rather than classing all women as better drivers than all men.

to extend your model then, all men should pay the same premium initially instead of say classing 17-24 year olds as more likely to have an accident.

The initial premium is based on an assessed risk of you having an accident, that risk depends on many factors, only one of which is whether you have previously had an accident.
So your premium goes up after having an accident because that indicates that you are more likely to have an accident again, rather than your premium going down if you don't.

So starting off by ignoring the sex of the person being insured would be to ignore a key piece of data that indicates the likelihood of them making a claim, much as ignoring their age or the car they drove would do.