On the homepage of the Swedish insurance, the concept of insurance is defined as follows: "All insurance is based on the possibility to rely on a professional approach, on scientific methods of calculation to apportion risks in solidarity and so provide a community to provide financial coverage at a reasonable cost.
" Insurance is therefore the collective sharing of risk. The prerequisite is, however, that this distribution is governed by a little bit of realism rather than excessive optimism. Or, writes the Federation of Insurance: the method must be "professional." This means that it must be financially viable while relying on "scientific calculation methods.
Otherwise the method can not be described as "professional." Nobody would probably underwrite insurance policy whose premium is fixed based on prejudices, assumptions or mere vague intuitions. And nobody would consider not wise to ignore important factors. That is what the European Court of Justice decided.
Starting next year, gender is excluded from the calculation of insurance premiums. Admittedly, it already existed, since 2007 a European Directive prohibiting insurance companies assess risk based on the gender of the insured. However, this ban had been accompanied by a derogation, that it was possible to take gender into account when it had a "reliable official statistics" on which to build.
A derogation of common sense, one might think. Since we now know that young drivers, for example, are more dangerous than young female drivers on the road, is it not legitimate that they are subject to an insurance premium slightly higher? Similarly, it is just that life expectancy (longer for women) can affect the cost of premium life insurance.
The decision of the European Court of Justice has the effect of removing this exception. In other words, young drivers (who usually have fewer accidents) can now expect to pay their auto insurance much more expensive than was the case hitherto. In this case, the ECJ followed the recommendations of the Advocate General Juliane Kokott.
It said there was not "sufficient evidence showing that women live longer than men lead or worse simply because of their biology." It may be convenient to belong to one sex over another, she believes, but that does not justify different treatment. That's a powerful argument. Of course, we can debate the question of whether women are predestined by their biological drive more safely or if the education of men and they will take more risks.
Of course, one might wonder if men have a biological predisposition to die earlier than women, or whether women are less at risk and therefore receive a higher life expectancy. And of course, all men and women do not necessarily correspond to generalities. But insurance companies are not study center.
They are not there to know the truth about man and woman. They are not there to question the existence of the sexes. They are there to try to formulate a professional approach, assumptions identified in the statistics for the economic good of the community. Naturally, some believe that with this decision, the European Union becomes more equal and less discriminatory.
Personally, I think mostly it gains in stupidity. 
" Insurance is therefore the collective sharing of risk. The prerequisite is, however, that this distribution is governed by a little bit of realism rather than excessive optimism. Or, writes the Federation of Insurance: the method must be "professional." This means that it must be financially viable while relying on "scientific calculation methods.
Otherwise the method can not be described as "professional." Nobody would probably underwrite insurance policy whose premium is fixed based on prejudices, assumptions or mere vague intuitions. And nobody would consider not wise to ignore important factors. That is what the European Court of Justice decided.
Starting next year, gender is excluded from the calculation of insurance premiums. Admittedly, it already existed, since 2007 a European Directive prohibiting insurance companies assess risk based on the gender of the insured. However, this ban had been accompanied by a derogation, that it was possible to take gender into account when it had a "reliable official statistics" on which to build.
A derogation of common sense, one might think. Since we now know that young drivers, for example, are more dangerous than young female drivers on the road, is it not legitimate that they are subject to an insurance premium slightly higher? Similarly, it is just that life expectancy (longer for women) can affect the cost of premium life insurance.
The decision of the European Court of Justice has the effect of removing this exception. In other words, young drivers (who usually have fewer accidents) can now expect to pay their auto insurance much more expensive than was the case hitherto. In this case, the ECJ followed the recommendations of the Advocate General Juliane Kokott.
It said there was not "sufficient evidence showing that women live longer than men lead or worse simply because of their biology." It may be convenient to belong to one sex over another, she believes, but that does not justify different treatment. That's a powerful argument. Of course, we can debate the question of whether women are predestined by their biological drive more safely or if the education of men and they will take more risks.
Of course, one might wonder if men have a biological predisposition to die earlier than women, or whether women are less at risk and therefore receive a higher life expectancy. And of course, all men and women do not necessarily correspond to generalities. But insurance companies are not study center.
They are not there to know the truth about man and woman. They are not there to question the existence of the sexes. They are there to try to formulate a professional approach, assumptions identified in the statistics for the economic good of the community. Naturally, some believe that with this decision, the European Union becomes more equal and less discriminatory.
Personally, I think mostly it gains in stupidity.
No comments:
Post a Comment