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Why is it legal to charge men more for car insurance? It’s definitely more profitable that way, but maybe so is the targeting in the article.
by aianus 7y ago
Why is it legal to charge men more for car insurance? It’s definitely more profitable that way, but maybe so is the targeting in the article.
- dangus 7y agoBecause it’s not covered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act.
- mirimir 7y agoOr by other laws that prohibit discrimination. But of course, there could be laws that prohibit linking vehicle insurance cost to gender. My solution, when I've been married, has been having my wife get insurance, and add me as a driver. But that doesn't matter so much now that I'm older. Edit: I do agree that discrimination by gender is fundamentally unethical.
- bradbeattie 7y agoWhile the user did ask why it's legal, I think it's clear that the question is "why is it /ethical/ to discriminate in this case and not that?". Saying that Law X exists answers the literal question, but not the implied actual question.
- dragonwriter 7y agoBut no one said it is was ethical in the case where it is legal, so if that was the intended question, not only is it phrased wrong but it starts from an unsupported premise, to wit, that people in the discussion believe that one is ethical and the other not.
- j4kp07 7y agoNow who said engineers aren't fun to hang out with?
- kortilla 7y agoIf someone asks why something is legal, the answer they are looking for is never “because the laws allow it”.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- qtplatypus 7y agoIt can be “which laws allow it” and the person answered that.
- 300bps 7y agoI worked for a car insurance company for ten years and the management would answer, “Because loss history shows that we pay more in claims for insured men.” So that’s ok but for some reason if it were a particular race they wouldn’t think to charge people More by race so honestly I don’t know how to answer your question in a logically consistent manner.
- foobar1962 7y agoThen there is the Canadian guy that changed their gender to female to save $1,100. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6007501/Canadian-legally-changes-sex-cheaper-car-insurance.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6007501/Canadian-le...
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Why is it legal to charge men more for car insurance? Because car insurance isn't employment, is separately regulated, and does not exclude gender from permissible inputs into actuarial calculations.
- gweinberg 7y agoYou realize you just said "it's legal because it's legal", right?
- dragonwriter 7y agoWell, I mean, if you'd rather a political than a mechanics-of-law explanation as to why the law treats two situations differently mo, it's legal because heterosexual couples plus women outside of such couples combine to form a powerful voting bloc, and gender rating, compared to it's absence with no other change in practice, is a benefit to that group. Specifically, compared to perfect allocation of costs, it's a small subsidy from people outside of opposite-sex couples to opposite-sex couples, whereas not having gender rating with otherwise status quo policies is a large subsidy from women not in opposite-sex couples to men not in opposite-sex couples. Under status quo policies, opposite sex couples are in practice fairly free to gender-optimize insurance pricing by putting the less expensive to insure driver as primary on the more expensive to insure vehicle, regardless of actual primary driver.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- karlakush 7y agoThat's a complete non-answer. If it's wrong to exclude women from job ads, it's just as wrong to charge men more for car insurance.
- scarface74 7y agoBecause there is no specific law that bans charging men and women different prices for car insurance. There are specific laws regarding discriminatory advertising with employment and housing.