Hacker News Reader

Comment by echubb | Hacker News Reader

This has to be one of the most ridiculous rulings I've ever heard. Statistically, male drivers are more dangerous, so why should women now subsidise this behaviour? It's pure ideological lawmaking, designed to show how egalitarian the EU is by in fact foisting a law upon its citizens which is completely disconnected from reality.

In their attempt to achieve "equality" and "fairness," they've actually achieved neither - the two concepts are mutually exclusive in the insurance world. The whole concept of insurance, like life itself is predicated on inequality in the boolean algebraic sense of the word. It just proves how meddlesome the Eurocracy is becoming.

Besides, where does it end ? It's likely now that male pension annuities, up till now cheaper than female ones, due to the earlier death of the average male will increase too. That's not "fair," is it?

View on HN

It seems to me your intention here was not to point out the perceived wrongness of this particular decision, but to provide "yet another case of Brussels bureaucrats meddling in our lives". In doing that, you're purposefully confusing the lawmaking and judiciary parts of the legal system to create an imagined body which you creatively name the "Eurocracy", while this was a court decision independent of those actually making the law. In short, your intention was to rant, using this ruling as an excuse, and not to provide potentially interesting information.

As for the ruling itself, I don't see what's wrong with it. It's gender discrimination, and gender discrimination is (IMO rightly) unlawful. I have never been in a car accident, I'm a careful and relatively safe driver and I don't appreciate having to pay more just because I happen to be male.

I'm sure you can come up with statistics that show people of a certain ethnicity are more likely to be in an accident too, but insurance companies know that's a no-go. Discriminating by gender is exactly the same; it's based on something you are that you can't change, unlike driving experience and where you live which you can.

sorry, I don see any problem here.

If the fact that "Statistically, male drivers are more dangerous" would mean that no matter how safe am i driving, my insurance cost will be higher than my wife's insurance would prob make me feel discriminated based my gender. I want my_insurance= f(driving_experience, incident_count, my_car, my_area, etc) not my gender.

You have that now.

Premiums are based on the groups to which you belong. Some of those groups are driving experience, your car, your area, your incident count, etc. Another is, of course, your gender. If a valid statistical correlation can be found between gender and revenue, they will adjust the premium to compensate.

so what about if next study will show that statistically afro-american drivers are more or less risky that others? still fine to have different rates for them???

I dont know much about how car insurance are calculated but if their formulas still have some gender discrimination - this should be banned.

The real question is: what makes a group okay to "discriminate" against?

Is it my driving experience (i.e. age)? How many incidents I have had? My ability to afford a safe car or live in a nice area?

Where are we allowed to draw the line?

Why is gender protected? You seem to be perfectly ok with discriminating on age (experience) and where you live.

That would be fine if insurance companies had the administrative manpower to tailor policies to each individual customer, but they deal in generalities so they rely on a risk profile derived from people similar to you. Also, your function is not applicable to a first time driver who has no previous experience or incident count.

"deal in generalities" should not be function of my gender(which is 1)initially not under my control 2) even unclear how to define in some "complex" cases? ).

my funtion is perfectly applicable for firsttimers. in this case some of the args are zero So first time male/female drivers in same region, age, cars, other characteristics should have similar costs for their first ins_period.

Again I dont see any troubles with this initiative, to me it makes perfect sense.

Strange thing to get angry about...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com