This feels like an abstracted form of arbitrage: the markets have figured out that there's a quantifiable risk difference between men and women, but they have not distinguished cis and trans folks in their model, and not figured out whether this is a hormones-at-birth difference, or a current-hormones difference, or a socialization difference, or what. They have also certainly not figured out how to distinguish actual trans folks from arbitrageurs (this is something that I think the law ought not to try too hard to figure out, on limited-government grounds, but the markets would love to take as much data as they can and feed it into a model). Once they figure it out, they'll price this person as a person, and he won't be able to swing it as dramatically.
Gender is a pretty crude (though effective) axis to make this sort of risk distinction on. An insurance company that can accurately figure out which men are lower-risk to insure than the average man will probably have a pretty good time in the market. (And get a head start on any policy changes about not discriminating on gender.)
> Once they figure it out, they'll price this person as a person, and he won't be able to swing it as dramatically.
Ronald Coase, of Coase theorem fame, believed that markets are rarely efficient: "Coase argued that real-world transaction costs are rarely low enough to allow for efficient bargaining and hence the theorem is almost always inapplicable to economic reality."[1] In this case, the inefficiency persists because the costs of implementing a more detailed model would far exceed the benefits.
I liked this hilarious little bit at the end of that post:
Disclaimer I must say (for anyone who tries to report me) that I didn’t legally change my sex solely for cheaper auto-insurance, though, that was and is a big factor for me and other people who suffer from gender-dysphoria.
> that was and is a big factor for me and other people who suffer from gender-dysphoria.
Yeah... never once heard anyone say that "car insurance" was why they got their gender changed on government paperwork. The whole things looks very suspect and found this thread on r/asktransgender talking about this which rather than trying to summarize I'll let you enjoy and read for yourself https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/8g0ai9/chea...
I interpreted it as being a joke, which while may be construed as poor taste, was probably made in jest.
One commenter on the original thread pointed out the other difficulties the OP will eventually run into regarding booking flights, etc. so I presume that since the OP is not actually dysmorphic or having gender dysphoria that they will eventually discover that what they will encounter from doing this was not worth the $1000 a year saved.
Gender is a state of mind in Canada and therefore Alberta.
If it catches on, it will probably stop working once the statistics reveal gender-changed MtoF's to be just as high in accident rates as regular males.
Assuming that's what they reveal, yes. If accident rates are linked to testosterone levels, trans women taking hormone-replacement therapy should have statistically lower accident rates - and trans men taking hormone-replacement therapy should have statistically higher accident rates.
Gender is a pretty crude (though effective) axis to make this sort of risk distinction on. An insurance company that can accurately figure out which men are lower-risk to insure than the average man will probably have a pretty good time in the market. (And get a head start on any policy changes about not discriminating on gender.)