Auto Insurance -- A Sexist Affair

Cars are, for better or for worse, a necessary evil of millions' of people's lives. Certainly in industrialized countries, where cars are seen by many, or even most people, as a necessity, but also, with the coming advent of the new super-cheap car, soon in other parts of the world also perhaps, cars will be everywhere you look.

Cars normally mean auto insurance. Auto insurance is compulsory in many places, in part to protect the driver of the car from him- or herself, but also to protect others from getting in a car crash with someone only to find that they have no auto insurance...

Auto insurance, like all insurance, is based on risk assessment. If you have a poor record driving cars, then auto insurance companies are likely to charge you higher auto insurance premiums. But what about "profiling"? This is when an insurance company assesses your risk based on your membership in a larger group, When it comes to auto insurance and the risk of you having a car crash, it is (a) age and (b) gender that gets looked by many auto insurance companies.

Auto insurance companies may be pushing the envelope of civil rights, but in many places insurance companies will charge your more for your auto insurance if you are young. This is partly because you have less experience in general, but specifically because you have less experience driving a car.

Auto insurance companies however can also profile you by gender. This applies most often to young people, but males often have to pay higher insurance premiums than females do for their auto insurance.

Auto insurance companies love statistics and one statistic that these insurance companies fixate on is the fact that young males have more car accidents than young females. If you are in a car with a young women behind the wheel then you are safer than if you were passenger to a male driving the car.

Auto insurance companies consider it fair and reasonable to discriminate this way, and charge, for auto insurance, insurance premiums that are sometimes many times the insurance costs a female must pay an auto insurance company for her auto insurance.

Is this fair? Is this a form of "gender profiling"? Even if it is, is it justified by the increased safety level, on average, you are exposed to when you are in your car?

Auto insurance, and maybe insurance and insurance companies in general, and certainly cars, are topics we all seem to have something to say about. I would love to generate a lively debate here about this issue of being discriminated against based on gender by auto insurance companies.

So I welcome one and all to generate some heated discussion, here below, in the Comments section of this Hub on auto insurance.

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