Quote Originally Posted by monday21
[quote author=BMWGraeme link=1347550718/6#6 date=1347561934][quote author=monday21 link=1347550718/5#5 date=1347561605]I’m all in favour of the new legislation. Why should an 18 year old male who has just passed his test and starting of with a clean slate be penalised due to his gender. You are right though Graeme – the insurance companies will use the new law to make a killing.

I really hope that this new ruling gives some clout to women’s right to equal pay too. Big business has flaunted our sex equality laws for too long.
The problem is though Ken is the whole insurance system is based on risk. Female drivers have a lower risk factor but that won't be taken into account anymore. So, yes, the lads will pay less, but the lassies will pay more than previously and that is based on gender rather than risk. Would you be happy to pay more for your insurance because someone decides you can't be ageist anymore when it comes to your bike insurance even though you are a lower risk than and 18 year old?[/quote]

Only at the start Graeme. Forget the new law for a moment and I will try and explain.

We all start from go paying the same premium in our first year of driving/riding. This is fair because no one has a track record in terms of claims, convictions etc. From then on in subsequent years the insurance companies judge each individual driver/rider on their own merits and set the premiums accordingly. Of course that’s how it works now and will continue to do so. Those who are deemed to be high risk (i.e. convictions fault claims) will pay much higher premiums.

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Thats not how it works though Ken, there are many factors involved in assessing the risk and the premiums associated with that risk. Age is one of them. Statistically, young female drivers have far fewer accidents than young male drivers do. If you worked on the basis that every other risk factor was the same apart from gender, would it not be fair that a premium for a female driver, taking every other factor as equal, had a lower premium? Thats the fair way of doing it. Insurance companies do not look at individual circumstances as such, they look at the risk of all the factors that are variables for that individual.