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| Gender Based Life Insurance |
The adoption of the EU Gender Directive into UK law means that insurers can now only use gender as a discriminatory factor for policy pricing if they can publish supporting data.
Having been moved to do so by the EU Gender Directive, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has published information enabling insurers to continue to use gender as a component in policy pricing. This will cover policies right across the spectrum of life insurance, such as those for critical illness coverage, rate term life and declining term life insurance.
That's exactly what ABI did, publishing data showing significant differences between male and female claim patterns for all types of life insurance policies, including critical illness coverage. They also published data detailing gender differences in claim patterns on other types of policies, such as auto insurance and health insurance.
An ABI spokesperson commented, “The insurance industry opposes unfair discrimination of any kind and does not practice it. But it is legal for companies to set prices, levels of coverage and allowances according to a number of factors which together determine the relative risk posed by any given customer.
The UK gender and transposition guidelines recognize this and are demanding that the insurance industry collect and publish data to demonstrate the relevance of gender in making underwriting decisions. This has now been done. As a result, customers will continue to benefit from reasonable prices and a range of products that suit their needs at affordable prices.”
In general, in the UK today, women will pay less for life insurance than men. However, with critical illness coverage, the gender gap is less clear, as a woman is likely to pay far less than a man if she excludes breast cancer coverage from her policy.
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