Comment by oh_sigh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by oh_sigh | Hacker News Reader

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Per the article the EU already banned gender discrimination for insurance rates in 2011. Catch up Canada!

I wonder why it is that car insurance charges higher rates to young males(who on average cost more than young females), but medical insurance as far as I can tell is equally priced for young men and young women, even though young women generally have higher health care costs than young men(primarily through childbirth and greater use of health services).

I don't want to be cynical but I imagine if a health care company in the US or Canada actually did start charging more for some class of young women vs young men, it would make international news and lead to new anti-discrimination laws for health insurance

I noticed the lack of gender having an effect on price... However they are still discriminate on "Title" (Mr, Miss, Mrs). It makes a pretty substantial change to quotes I get.

They also use first name to discriminate. Put in "Wayne", and the quotes are much higher than "Sarah".

  Catch up Canada!

No thanks. We understand that men are more reckless than women and we refuse to needlessly harm our insurance companies.

Oh, good point. Let's also recognize that blacks are more likely to commit violent crimes and have violent crimes committed upon them, so we should be charging them extra for health insurance relative to whites.

Speak for yourself, I'm Canadian and would love to eliminate gender discrimination from auto insurance

It won't harm the insurance companies, as it'll be a level playing field, and they'll all have to simply quote new rates that work out for them given the new data they're allowed to consider. The parties harmed will be, on average, women, whose rates will go up, and the beneficiaries will be, on average, men, especially young men, whose rates will come down.

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