Equality for car insurance

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The above article reminded me about how the EU has judged it is unfair to discriminate gender when quoting a price of insurance. Part of me agrees.

If women want equality, then their insurance should cost the same for them as it would for men.

People are using the “Teenage men/boys crash more often” approach when justifying a position against the EU ruling. To be honest, I understand that many teenage oiks do have silly accidents because of their own stupidity. And they should pay for it. But my focus in this post is the “adult” drivers, those who after a certain age or a certain amount of no claims should expect a drop in insurance costs.

I’m almost 32, with 6 years no claims (Should be 9, but it’s complicated) and I’m still paying the same amount for fully comp as I did when I ten years ago.
I know I pay more for my insurance than my younger sister whose car is riddled with bumps and scrapes. (She keeps getting bollards and pillars jumping out on her!).

My mate pays more for his fully comp policy than his wife does, to the tune of £200! They drive their own cars, but are similar in make and model. She has had 3 claims in 6 years and I think 1 from her first year of driving, he has none in his entire driving history. Both are over 28 years of age and he has been driving longer. Where is the equality there?

For ****s n giggles, I once added my mother to my insurance as an additional driver when getting quotes. This dropped the price of one quote by £150. When I added my mate’s Dad’s name instead, the quote remained unchanged.

I agree that the “women are safer so should pay less” rule is discriminatory.
If I was to open a sports shop and give men a discount because they make better infantry troops, I’d bloody well get slapped with fines for discrimination.

I see as many women doing stupid things on the road as men to be honest.
I’ve also seen many “girl racers” pulling the same manoeuvres as “boy racers”.

Like it or not, both genders are equally able to crash and kill or be killed.

I think a better system would be to take your driving history and qualifications into consideration.

For example, if you are licensed to drive a bus or lorry, you’re more spatially aware. And if you can drive a bus or lorry, then you are generally more able to manoeuvre a car safely. This should qualify you for a discount.

People with a “Drivers plus” or “Advanced driving” qualification currently enjoy a small discount. This should be continued. In my opinion, such courses should become part of the required learning drive curriculum.

The above and the current no claims discount scheme would bring in a much fairer insurance policy, in my opinion.

As for the subject of young drivers, either increase their insurance costs or bring in the same engine size limitations as enforced for motorcyclists.
I propose that between passing their test and up to the fifth year of driving, the engine size is limited to 1 Litre and no modifications to the engine or related components are allowed. The only exception being a company vehicle, on company time.

Young drivers should also not be allowed to be a named driver on a parents or other adult’s insurance policy. This is how they are currently getting around it and affording all the modifications that make them a general nuisance.

Discuss 🙂