Good to see Europe has ruled that preferential car insurance rates for females is discriminatory. I have always felt it unfair that an entire gender should get labelled for a comparitively small number of people who drive like idiots.
Premiums should be (and I thought were) based on your individual driving record. So I'm not sure how all males managed to get targetted as a "higher risk" in the first place. However, I don't quite see how insurance companies can justify a 25% increase in premiums for female drivers, and only a 10% reduction for males. Seems to me there a 15% discrepancy between the two figures. Is this another insurance rip off??

What a can of worms though. Why do we let the European Court dictate to us?

So insurance companies now cannot "risk assess" to determine premiums. Risk is not just assessed on gender but also on age, postcode, vehicle, individual driving record..If you are involved in a RTA your insurance will usually increase even if it was not your fault and there was no claim against you.....because insurers say that if you are involved in a collision, even if not your fault, then you are more likely to be involved in another.

So will all postcodes now be equal? All ages equal? All vehicles equal? All annual mileages equal? All driving records equal?

Will this ruling also spread to House/contents insurance, Annuities?

All that this ruling will bring is higher insurance for everyone, not just females but people seem too obtuse to realise this.

You're right mate. 25% minus 10% means an overall increase in most family's car insurance costs. I'm more worried about the alarming number of uninsured drivers on the road. It's about time the law was toughened up so that this wasn't a money saving option. Unfortunately, insurance companies want it all thier own way, so I don't see any light on the horizon for us consumers.

[quote name='lee789' timestamp='1298985601' post='748092']
However, I don't quite see how insurance companies can justify a 25% increase in premiums for female drivers, and only a 10% reduction for males. Seems to me there a 15% discrepancy between the two figures. Is this another insurance rip off??
[/quote]

You are assuming that there are an equal number of male and female drivers insuring cars.

As well as car insurance ( up for women, down for men ), it will affect life insurance ( up for women, down for men ) and pension annuities ( down for men ( your monthly pension payment when you retire ) and up for women ).

Think I've got that the right way round.

I think the quoted figures of 25% and 10% will be more towards the younger end of the scale, drivers over 25 (in the safe zone) probably wont see anywhere near that much change. And I think dave1 hit the nail on the head in regard to the figures, more male drivers on the road means the percentage doesnt have to drop as much to see the same overall decrease in premium figures. However it has been warned that all premiums will rise while the insurance companies figure out what to do about the euro laws. (plus they have already gone up loads due to the massive amount of claims last year because of all the flooding)