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| Thread: Insurance price, equality (gender) |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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xerox
Promising
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posted December 21, 2012 10:31 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 22:35, 21 Dec 2012.
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Quote:
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Making men pay more just because they're men is the same thing as denying black people to ride the bus.
It's not a good analogy. Nobody is making men pay more just because they're men.
I know, that's why:
Quote:
I countered this by saying that there is statistical proof that men are more likely to get into traffic trouble, but that there isn't any statistical proof that black people do worse on the bus than other people.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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gnomes2169
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posted December 21, 2012 10:58 PM |
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Quote:
Still sexist, no matter how you sugar coat it.
I meant that if the only reason there is a rate difference is that one is a girl or one is a boy, then it should not exist. Profiling a guy or girl based on statistical rates is discriminatory, sexist and illegal, and it should not be done.
Hope that clears up any confusion that might or might not have existed from my post.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 21, 2012 11:09 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 23:12, 21 Dec 2012.
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Now I realized that there's another problem.
Say we allow insurance companies to discriminate men (more likely to get into an accident) because men can just choose another, more equal insurance company on the free market anyway.
Then should we also allow shopkeepers to discriminate ethnical groups of people such as the romani or somali, because there's statistical proof that those people are more likely to steal and cheat? Becaue using the free market logic, those people could just go to another shop that's not known to discriminate against them.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 22, 2012 05:39 AM |
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Quote:
should we also allow shopkeepers to discriminate ethnical groups of people such as the romani or somali
Yes.
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Eccentric Opinion
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blizzardboy
Honorable
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Nerf Herder
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posted December 22, 2012 06:25 AM |
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It's not even necessarily about that. It's the question of whether or not you're actually making the system any more "fair". Allowing insurance companies to discriminate based on highly-backed data, such as the fact that men are more dangerous behind the wheel of a car, makes the system more, not less, balanced.
The whole point of insurance (whether it's auto or any other insurance) is that you pay a small, manageable premium so that, if in the event you need to fork over a huge sum of money when something bad happens, you don't need to. The insurance company can do the job for you. Insurance companies are sustainable because they take in more money than they have to deal out, but one way or another, they need money to stay in business. After all, accidents happen, and somebody needs to foot the bill. Part of this process involves a finely-tuned checklist for determining what an individual's premium will be. If you deny the legality of insurance companies being able to charge men more for their insurance, then you're either forcing the insurers to go broke, or they're going to have to cover that significant lose of revenue some other way, which basically means that everybody else has to pay more, i.e. people that are even less statistically likely to force the insurance company to cover a major accident. What you're left with is an admittedly imperfect system that is now even more imperfect. But that might not disappoint everybody; many people would still prefer it changed. Misery loves company.
On a micro scale, it might intuitively feel like an injustice, but on a macro scale, you have a fairer system when you allow the insurance gurus to freely use data to guide their rates.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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gnomes2169
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posted December 22, 2012 06:55 AM |
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Then they charge men increased rates once they get in an accident. Doing so before hand deems men innocent before they do anything wrong, and I don't particularly like being judged guilty of something I didn't do. In other words, it honestly isn't fair.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted December 22, 2012 07:05 AM |
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Gnomes, insurance is about risk. There's a science to risk evaluation. Lack of information is in itself a type of quantifiable risk. While giving people the benefit of the doubt sounds like a reasonable think to do, it's actually bad science, to say nothing of bad business.
Do you want risk assessment to be based on science, or do you want it to be based on something else? Perhaps underwriters should just assign your premium based on whether they're feeling happy that day. It would be not so different than what you are suggesting.
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gnomes2169
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posted December 22, 2012 07:26 AM |
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Quote:
Perhaps underwriters should just assign your premium based on whether they're feeling happy that day. It would be not so different than what you are suggesting.
Actually, that's a few worlds different from what I'm talking about. Ever heard of the term, "Innocent until proven guilty?" I won't patronize you (more), but that would basically be the same principal. You charge more for insurance based on how much of a risk that individual has proven to be. And of course I realize that it is a terrible business decision, I'm just saying that it's a hell of a lot more fair than charging someone for something that is both beyond their control and not an assurance of danger or liability. (Being a guy only increases you chances, it does not ensure that you get in a car crash. For example, My father: Has never been in an accident while he was driving. My mother: Has totalled one car, hit a tree, destroyed the bumper of her current car three times and has been in so many close calls it isn't funny. Her rate is still lower (An example of why this system isn't fair, yes?).)
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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blizzardboy
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Nerf Herder
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posted December 22, 2012 07:45 AM |
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You aren't guilty or innocent. You're just paying for something.
The imperfection of insurance companies is a result of a lack of data, not because the data they're working with is (necessarily) faulty. Obviously, there is no means of acquiring data on whether or not you WILL get in an accident at some point in the future. The next-best solution is to take existing data to gauge your risk of getting in an accident in the future.
You could further complicate the process of determining what your premium will be in order to try to make it more accurate. For example, you could have a psychologist, paid for by the insurance company, show up at your home and perform a thorough psychiatric evaluation. Then they could send you to one of their special facilities where they hook you up in a cockpit and test your hand-eye coordination and motor reflex skills. Then they could score your results and you could get bonus points to deduct your premium. Less desirable people would be shafted to pay more. Could this result in a slightly more accurate system? Probably. The problem here is that it would involve a lot of time and money on behalf of the insurance company (not to mention a severe pain in the ass for the client), which defeats the entire purpose of doing it. The expenses dumped into trying to make a super accurate system would mean they'd have make up the difference by bumping up everybody's premium.
Another option is to just dump the same premium on everybody, which is what you're doing when you don't allow insurance companies to make a higher risk group pay more. You're just throwing the burden on other people even though all data points to the fact that it would be fairer if it was done the other way ("Fairness" isn't the reason that insurance companies have customized premiums, but whatever, I'll go with it). You brought up the example of your dad paying more even though your mom has thus far shown to be a greater hazard. Without using gender as a factor, you will have more, not less, of such scenarios as that.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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gnomes2169
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posted December 22, 2012 08:03 AM |
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Quote:
Without using gender as a factor, you will have more, not less, of such scenarios as that.
How would that be possible, Blizz, if you made genders different and kept punishments (higher rates) for only people that prove themselves to be higher risk? The absolutely only reason my father pays more is that he is a guy, so you will forgive me if I don't see how you could be right.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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blizzardboy
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posted December 22, 2012 08:23 AM |
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It's not a question of "if". That is the case, year after year. Men get themselves into big wrecks. When you equalize the premium (at least in regard to gender), you're transferring that burden onto women, who are -year after year - much less costly.
And in your example, you certainly don't prove anything when you only decide to raise somebody's premium when they get in an accident. There are an incalculable number of factors that could have played a part in what ultimately resulted in the person wrecking. It doesn't in anyway whatsoever mean that they are a bad driver. However, when you take a large sample of data and look at people that get into accidents, people that get into one or two accidents are more likely on average to be involved in yet another accident further down the road. Insurance companies respond to that data by raising rates on them, ultimately resulting in a more balanced system, where more risky candidates pay a little more than less risky candidates.
It is not perfect because the data that insurance companies work with is vastly insufficient. Using what data you do have is, however, far superior to using none at all.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted December 22, 2012 08:35 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 15:51, 22 Dec 2012.
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Gnomes, would you expect a bank to hand out low interest mortgages to people without any credit history? I mean, I hope you realize that the whole concept of interest rate is based upon the exact same principle as insurance premium. I would be surprised if you would argue that banks should just loan strangers money at low interest and absorb the cost of the inevitable fraction that ultimately foreclose. I mean, the costs of foreclosures have to come from somewhere, and it can't come from banks - else they'd go out of business and there'd be nobody to give loans. So the cost of foreclosures is defrayed by elevating the interest rates of high risk individuals, and people with no credit history are de facto high risk individuals.
Let's put it this way. Let's say out of the sake of equality we lower the auto insurance premiums of men so that they are the same (on average) of women. However the simple fact is that men have more accidents on average than women, so the result is that the insurance company loses money. Ignoring the issue of profit for a moment (i.e., let's assume that insurance companies only try to break even), what that means is that unless the insurance company makes up the cost of lowering the insurance premiums of men, the company will become insolvent and go out of business. Then nobody has insurance. That's not good. Therefore the insurance company has to make up that deficit somehow. The only other solution is to raise the average premium of both men AND women by some degree. Assuming we still keep the cost the same for both men and women, what probably ends up happening is that while men pay less than they would under the original scenario, women end up paying more.
Now, you've said it's unfair that men should have to pay more than women, even if statistically they are more likely to need a payout by the insurance company. I ask: is it not MORE unfair to expect women, who are statistically less likely to ever file a claim, to pay more than they need to in order to compensate for their average load? I'd argue so.
Quote:
For example, My father: Has never been in an accident while he was driving. My mother: Has totalled one car, hit a tree, destroyed the bumper of her current car three times and has been in so many close calls it isn't funny. Her rate is still lower (An example of why this system isn't fair, yes?).)
Is this a hypothetical? Unless they're divorced, a husband and wife would most likely have a family insurance policy and not individual premiums, and in any case the reduction in rate you get for being married (and the age your parents probably are) would normally far outweigh any hit you'd likely take for your gender. Also, I'll add the accidents have short histories - for my policy it is three years, which means that any accidents that happen more than three years in the past aren't incorporated in your risk calculation. (I've had a couple accidents in the past, a few of which were my fault, but none which are in the last three years, so I am considered a person with no accidents.) Frankly I think that's a good thing for most people.
More to the point, your problem is that you're not thinking of statistics. You're considering individuals, not people as a whole. Yes, you can probably pick out cases here and there that seem unfair. But you're cherry picking and not looking at the larger picture. The fact is that the data doen't lie - men are more likely to file a claim than women. Men cost the insurance companies more than women. Men should therefore pay more to insurance companies than women. That's on the whole. When you have an extensive driving record, as I've said, insurance companies incorporate this heavily in your risk profile so that it vastly outweighs regular demographic factors.
But even so, this is just the way the industry works. No matter how you do it, someone's going to feel it's not fair. I mean, when I turned 25 my insurance rate dropped a crapload. I didn't suddenly just become a better a driver. It's because people over the age of 25 are - ON AVERAGE - less likely to file claims than people under the age of twenty five, and because people under 25 don't have lengthy driving records to prove what kind of drivers they are. Same thing happened when I got married. I didn't snow and whine about the fact I had to pay more money when I was 24. I recognize that no matter what a great driver I think I was, the fact was that the insurance company saw me as higher risk because they've got years of data to prove it, and if I want to drive I have to share in that risk. The insurance company wasn't just going to take my word for it that I thought I was better than the average 24 year old driver, and it certainly makes no sense to expect insurance companies (like banks with loans) to start people at low rates and then absorb the cost of all those people who have accidents. People who have accidents have their rates go up anyway, and usually for good reason (though not always - I mean, not everyone who has one accident has another, right? By your logic, we shouldn't raise the rates of people who have accidents either, because nothing can predict with 100% accuracy whether and when you'll file a claim).
It's all statistics and risk evaluation, and that's just how it is. Unfortunately most people understand statistics about as well as they speak Latin, so it's no wonder they see insurance premiums as unfair.
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gnomes2169
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Duke of the Glade
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posted December 22, 2012 08:35 AM |
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Note, Blizz, I never said that it was a good economic decission. In fact, I flat out admitted that it was a bad one. I'm just saying that it isn't fair in the slightest.
Sort of like telling a kid that they have to pay 30% more for the mom&dad tax after Halloween because boys tend to be more energetic when they eat more candy and cause more trouble. You take it anyway, but you just don't tell them about it. Sort of like an insurance company
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted December 22, 2012 08:44 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 08:45, 22 Dec 2012.
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By the way, I'll add that premiums for car insurance - that is, risk - is not only based on whether you are likely to be in an accident. What a lot of people forget is that premiums and risk are also based a lot on how frequently you drive. This is just a guess on my part, but I'd bet some of the difference in premiums women pay with respect to men is the amount they tend to drive on average. Men work more than women (though the gap is narrowing) and therefore men probably drive on average more miles per week than women. Even if accident rates are the same, men probably have more accidents simply by virtue of the fact that they drive more often.
I don't have data to support that at the moment, but it's not a stretch to think it might be true.
If men do drive more than women, and this is a big part of the difference in premium costs, then it makes even MORE sense that men should pay higher premiums than women. But god forbid we actually try to think about the numbers rather than have knee-jerk emotional reactions to things like perceptions of GENDER INEQUALITY (oh the horror).
ALSO: THREAD MOVED TO OSM. (SORRY TSAR)
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master_learn
Legendary Hero
walking to the library
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posted December 22, 2012 09:30 AM |
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Here are some statistics from a quick search:
Fatal passenger vehicle crash involvements per 100 million miles traveled, by driver age and gender, April 2001–March 2002:
Age Male Female
16-19 Crash Involvements:4,257 Crash Involvements:1,852
Miles:46,427,394,01 Miles: 35,264,476,105
Rate:9.2 Rate: 5.3
20-29 Crash Involvements:8,949 Crash Involvements: 3,172
Miles: 225,999,581,860 Miles: 156,283,683,955
Rate: 4.0 Rate: 2.0
30-59 Crash Involvements:15,027 Crash Involvements: 6,946
Miles: 845,507,965,689 Miles: 551,350,306,430
Rate: 1.8 Rate: 1.3
60-69 Crash Involvements:2,097 Crash Involvements: 1,008
Miles: 128,814,817,845 Miles: 64,778,212,790
Rate: 1.6 Rate: 1.6
70-Plus Crash Involvements:3,148 Crash Involvements: 1,571
Miles: 76,991,652,560 Miles: 39,093,332,009
Rate: 4.1 Rate: 4.0
The source is here .
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"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted December 22, 2012 10:52 AM |
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Since having an insurance is compulsory, and driving without one is prohibited, I ****ing expect them to run it FAIRLY, instead of trying to churn the most money out of people.
Also, I've been looking into whether men are in fact more dangerous, this alleged fact is still heavily debated. Mail,
Also a little quote from the comments:
Quote:
"Scientists, as they call themselves, don't have the same access to data as insurance companies. Ask them which gender has more accidents."
----------------------------- They did that, and boy are they right, most women are motorway nightmares, 60mph middle lane hogging when the motorway is empty, what is all that about? do they feel safer in the middle lane, how many drivers don't understand how to keep in the left lane baffles my brain, putting make up on in the traffic is another, not having a clue what to do at mini roundabouts is a sure sign they aint got a clue at the big ones but get away with it because of the size. Lets not even go into reversing the dam thing.
Also an unverified source (checking up its roots now)
Quote:
New statistics show women are more likely to have car accidents because they are 42% more likely to NOT wear their prescription glasses when driving.
An extract from a verified source:
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Johns Hopkins:
"Overall, men were involved in 5.1 crashes per million miles
driven compared to 5.7 crashes for women, despite the fact that on
average they drove 74 percent more miles per year than did women."
Also this little gem >.<
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Then there is the story about a young child in Sunday school who when
the story about Lot's wife in the Bible was told - her looking back,
and being turned into a pillar of salt - remarked: "My mother once
looked back, and she turned into a telephone pole."
Made me giggle. :3
AUTHOR's NOTE: This post is heavily biased to suggest that female drivers are worse drivers overall than their counterparts, the intent was not to claim as such, but to try to unbalance the opposition's postition, and request a submission of their valid evidence. However, at the end of this thread, (god willing) the conclusion might indeed be that women are just **** drivers 
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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MeanMan
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 22, 2012 11:26 AM |
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I have a question for everyone who thinks it's fair that men should pay more for car insurance because they are at higher risk to get involded in a car accident:
so far women paid more for health insurance because they tend to visit the doctor more often and they might cause higher costs because they can get pregnant.
Now, since the premiums have to be gender neutral, women will have to pay less for their health insurance, men will have to pay more.
Question: Do you think this is fair or unfair?
I suppose you guys are of the opinion it's fair that women should pay more for a health insurance, for the same reason why men should pay more for car insurance.
I'm not sure about my own opinion though. On one hand i think insurance companies should be allowed to use statistics for their premiums, on the other hand "men and women are equal". I have no clue whether this new rule is good or bad. I think i will just accept it for now.
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meroe
Supreme Hero
Basically Smurfette
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posted December 22, 2012 12:10 PM |
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I wouldn't bother your pretty little heads over this boys. I mean, you can afford to pay more from the extra 14/20% you earn in wages than us poor, safe, girly drivers.
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Meroe is definetely out, sweet
as she sounds sometimes, she'd
definetely castrate you with a
rusted razror and forcefeed
your genitals to you in a
blink of an eye - Kipshasz
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted December 22, 2012 12:13 PM |
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Where the hell do you live, 1960>?
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted December 22, 2012 12:15 PM |
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Depending on the context increasing one gender's insurance expenses can be viewed as an attempt to maxamise the profit of the respective companies and essentially have nothing to do with rights, etc. The issue at hand probably makes no difference.
As for the statistics - they tend to be flawed and made up to prove something way too often to be a sufficient evidence on their own. A chart which shows just some number is nearly useless without further details about this number, explaining the context in which it is supposedly important. Without such details, this number is just manipulative, pure and simple, but can't be used to do any real "science".
All in all I don't think that gender-specific pays have to be tolerated no matter which gender they favour, mainly because they're just the blatant manipulation specified above.
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