A risky discrimination ruling

The European Court of Justice ruling this week in Luxembourg on sex discrimination seems to have gone a step too far and mixed up basic business calculations with risk and equality.

Insurance companies have been using statistics and facts to price their premiums to provide car insurance and pensions, but now will not be able to as this has been ruled out as sex discrimination.

This ruling will come into force from December 2012 and will mean a rise in cost of approximately 25% of the premiums women pay for car insurance, with some reduction for men. It will also mean a rise in the cost of pensions for men. I also suspect that insurance companies will use it as a great excuse to increase their margins.

What is going on here?

The facts are …men DO live longer than women on average, and women also are LESS likely to be involved in accidents, so being a lower risk. So why is a business now stopped from using facts about risk to calculate a business charge?

Also, what about age discrimination?

What are they going to do about the "discrimination" that exists between young drivers paying higher rates for their premiums than the older drivers? Surely they should be paying the same?

Pricing should be based on total risk to the insurer, not some miss placed discrimination view of a European bureaucrat. It has nothing to do with discrimination over race, age, sex or even shoe size!

This is a perfect example of the European bureaucrats trying to find something to do to justify their expenses and huge salaries paid for by the tax payer and nothing to do with common sense!