Car insurance provider raises concern over announcement

Mon, 04 Oct 2010

The AA has voiced its concern over claims made by Juliane Kokott, EU advocate general, that taking the sex of a person into consideration for car insurance purposes was against their fundamental rights.

Ms Kokott's announcement could lead to a change in the present directive.

Under the current directive, taking sex into account when calculating premiums is banned, however an exception is provided if differences in risk assessment are backed up by solid statistics.

Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, commented: "Of course we support banning discrimination where appropriate but there are sound, statistical reasons for differential insurance pricing, especially for younger drivers .

"If this becomes enshrined in UK law then younger women, who suffer substantially fewer serious collisions than men of the same age, would subsidise the premiums of male drivers who make claims that are on average twice as costly as women."

He added that this will make car insurance premiums higher for everyone.

Meanwhile, NFU Mutual warned recently that buying the cheapest car insurance could turn out to be a costly mistake.

The UK's leading rural insurer explained that motor insurance policies differ hugely and, fairly often, it is not until an insured motorist has "cause to claim on their policy they discover what is (and what isn't) covered".
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