Two car insurance quotes in Canada. One is for a man, the other is for a woman. Can you guess which one is which? (All other fields were filled out identically)

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I read your health insurance article, and that's not quite what it says.

Even excluding pregnancy-related visits, women were 33 percent more likely than men to visit a doctor, although this difference decreased with age. The rate of doctor visits for such reasons as annual examinations and preventive services was 100 percent higher for women than for men

GP visits are "cheap" from insurance standpoint, and preventative care actually saves treatment costs. It's not really a breakdown in numbers. Perhaps women really do cost insurance companies 33% more - but that's not what's covered in the article. Would be interesting to see a breakdown.

Also, all men out there, get your asses to the doc once a year for fuck's sake. I should take my own damn advice, haven't had a physical since childhood. Soviet childhood, even. I'm quickly approaching an age where behaving like that is retarded.

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[–]eskachig 0 points1 point2 points 14 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

Pregnancy is something of a special case, so we probably shouldn't focus on that - it's fairly male-related anyway, not just due to fatherhood thing, but also that half of the offspring are male.

It also seems like something the government should subsidize in the interests of social good and the ultimate example of "equality of opportunity".

Anyway, you're right, if women cost more over their lifetime (pregnancy aside), they should pay more in insurance. And it seems like they do, or used to. And on top of that, maternity coverage cost extra as well.

From your article:

WASHINGTON — Striking new evidence has emerged of a widespread gap in the cost of health insurance, as women pay much more than men of the same age for individual insurance policies providing identical coverage, according to new data from insurance companies and online brokers.

...

But women still pay more than men for insurance that does not cover maternity care. In the individual market, maternity coverage may be offered as an optional benefit, or rider, for a hefty additional premium.

Is that changing now? I wouldn't be surprised, risk assessment in health care is changing dramatically in other ways too - like not being able to discriminate against people with prior conditions.

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The whole point of insurance is to have groups of people pooling money together in order to spread the risk around. Everyone takes a little hit so that no one person has to take a big hit. The thing is, instead of "everyone takes a little hit", insurance companies come up with some very broad ideas on how little of a hit you can take. The thing is, the companies (up until very recently, and even now only to a small degree) don't really take into account how you actually drive. They're content to make sexist observations: "Well Johnny McSpeedy got a ticket, he's a boy. You're a boy, so you'll probably get one too." "Trisha McPrincess over there drives like an angel, so her sister Jane McSpeedy probably does too."

Of course, society tolerates this because it would be inordinately expensive for insurance companies to study every person's individual driving habits. That doesn't mean for even a second that it's fair or even OK, that just means it's tolerable.

[–]eskachig 0 points1 point2 points 14 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points5 points 14 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Is it really such a sexist observation when young men as a group drive much riskier than young women?

Yes, it is sexist. The whole point of sexism is that it snuffs out individual agency in favor of broad stereotyping. If literally every young man drove in a riskier way than literally every young woman, it would be OK, because then reality would necessitate it. The idea here is that I can drive perfectly safe, but I nonetheless get judged harshly because other people who happen to also have a Y chromosome don't drive safely. If you say this is OK, then is it OK to observe that some people with a Y chromosome are bad fathers, so all men are likely to be a bad father? It's not sexism, it's statistics! If a Judge knows (or thinks s/he knows, at least) that men are even slightly more likely to be a bad father than a woman is a bad mother, how can s/he, in good conscience, give any man a fair shot at the child? Oh, right, because the Judge is privy to that individual person's individual circumstances, so the Judge can make some sort of estimation of character. Insurance companies, not so much. Like I said, they are sexist, but tolerated because of the high administrative costs associated with such investigation.

Hell, it might even be OK if car insurance wasn't mandated as strongly as it is, because then you would at least have the agency to decide whether or not to get it. Mind you, this is coming from someone who lives in a city with no public transportation of any kind - having a car and paying insurance isn't an option, it's only slightly below death and taxes.

Someone with a long and clean driving record absolutely gets a discount on their insurance.

Yes, and someone who gets married also has a discount on their car insurance. Is it OK that insurance companies are punishing men who don't want to put their kids and finances in legal jeopardy?

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You don't think I understand how insurance works? Where did I indicate that I didn't understand that insurance is based on statistics? Did you ignore my entire comment? Did you not see where I said "you may statistically be right", or do you just like to try to discredit the person you're responding to before you make your argument?

to say that insurance companies cannot group policy holders is to say they have to charge everyone the same price

When did I say that everybody should be charged the same price? Do you seriously think that I'm against having higher insurance rates for people who crash their cars every week? Do you seriously think I'm against having higher insurance rates for a Lamborghini than a Toyota? No, those are all valid reasons to have higher insurance rates, clearly.

While we can debate if there are certain groupings that should/should not be allowed

Yea, that's the debate. Stop beating around the bush and make your point about what groupings you think should/should not be allowed. Should we be able to discriminate based on race if the statistics hold up? What about in the workforce? Can I not higher black people if they are statistically more likely to steal? Should women pay more for health insurance since they make more claims? Make your point about the actual topic.

[–]angry_cupcake_swarm 0 points1 point2 points 14 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

You don't think I understand how insurance works?

Nope. Hence my explanation.

You may statistically be right, but you fuck a lot of innocent people along the way.

The only way insurance works is if people who don't end up in car crashes pay money to cover the people who do get into car crashes. If you say the people who avoid accidents getting "fucked" by having to pay for others, then you are implicitly challenging the concept of insurance, whether you realized it or not.

If it could statistically be shown that black people are more likely to steal from their employers, would an employer be justified in not hiring a person as a cashier, based on him being black?

Hiring people is entirely different than insurance: you hire individuals to perform specific jobs. Grouping people into categories is tangental to hiring, (which should and is done on an individual basis), while grouping policyholders (people/organizations) is fundamentally necessary for insurance to operate.

I thought Martin Luther King Jr. cleared up that issue once and for all. Don't judge people by the groups they happen to fall into, judge the individual.

This is stating that you are against all groupings that contain more than one individual.

[–]foresthill[S] 0 points1 point2 points 14 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

"You don't think I understand how insurance works?"

Nope. Hence my explanation.

"Where did I indicate that I didn't understand that insurance is based on statistics?"

I didn't see an answer to this question in your explanation.

If you say the people who avoid accidents getting "fucked" by having to pay for others, then you are implicitly challenging the concept of insurance, whether you realized it or not.

No, this is not what I'm saying is getting "fucked." What is getting "fucked" is when you have the same type of car, driving record, commute length, age, location, parking situation, winter tire selection, claims history, and exact same level of competence as somebody else, but you pay more than them based on your race/gender.

Hiring people is entirely different than insurance: you hire individuals to perform specific jobs.

It's not entirely different in the way that I'm using it in this context. When employing somebody you need to consider the risk that they pose to taking money from you. Why not include race in that risk, if it can be statistically shown?

If you don't like that question, answer this: Should race be a factor that car insurance rates are based on?

Regardless your whole argument becomes pointless when you realise that it is already going to be illegal to use gender as a factor in car insurance rates in Europe. Their system isn't going to crash. Are everybody's car insurance rates going to be the same? No. Are people who have the same type of car, driving record, commute length, age, location, parking situation, winter tire selection, claims history, and exact same level of competence going to pay different prices based on their racial/gender group? No.

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Insurance companies could use any kind of statistics to justify charging people more(skin color, height, weight, eye colour, etc), that doesn't mean that it's right or in any way justified. Having a penis doesn't mean you automatically become a higher risk(At the very least, not from a consumer point of view). Even if a higher percentage of men get into more accidents(which really has a lot more to do with men generally being expected to do the majority of the driving and taking responsibility than it does about men being bad drivers) that still doesn't mean that the "statistics" excuse is an acceptable form of discrimination. Making a policy based on your driving record or on the amount of hours you typically spend on the road? Sure. Making a policy based on gender, before ever even considering any specifics? That is sexism.

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