[oligopoly]

>In Europe I believe that insurance already may not discriminate on sex: compared to women, men's car insurance got cheaper

That's false. After EU came meddling insurance was raised for men to the same level women had even though men have statistically lower risk of accident.

[admax88q]

That's odd. Here in North America I believe most insurance companies charge men more than women as they have a higher risk of serious accidents.

[PurpleBoxDragon]

You've probably heard of the phrase "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

So, I think (though I will admit it was long ago last time I looked this up), that men have a lower accident rate per mile driven but have a higher accident rate per time period (not time period driving). The reason is that men drive more (or at least use to, back when I read these statistics).

There is also the difference between different kinds of accidents. While per mile driven men have less accidents than women, they tend to, as you mentioned, be worse accidents. I forget if this actually made them cost more per mile driven or not, but once you also add in that they drive more, in a given year men do cost more and are charged more. (There is also the impact of younger men who have more thrill seeking behavior, so if you compared men and women within a specific age group you might find the statistics don't match the statistics across all age groups.)

So, thanks to the beauty of statistics, we can say that men are better drivers than women and men are worse drivers than women by using slightly different definitions of better or worse that, in layman English, are glossed over.

[admax88q]

> they tend to, as you mentioned, be worse accidents.

This reminds me of red light cameras. People love to complain that they only exist to make money because they statistically cause more accidents. And it's true, they do cause an increase in total number of accidents. But they decrease the number of serious accidents. You get more rear end collisions, but fewer T-Bone collisions which tend to be much more serious.

[oligopoly]

Could depend on the age group and driving record. In some age groups men can be overly aggressive drivers but overall less accidents compared to women.

For the person who downvoted OP was referring to the EU. Previously men paid less but when EU decided statistics are sexist now both pay the same higher amount. Yay for the consumer

[iguy]

Anyone got data? Prices change over time.

The best I could do in 5 minutes googling was newspapers complaining that, on average, men still pay more... because they drive (on average) further, in more expensive cars.

And rumours that they are setting the rates for different professions as a way to get around the rule... huge differences like this:

    Dental Nurse Less than 1pc male £840 
    Solicitor 59pc male £848 
    Sports and leisure assistants 56pc male £880 
    Civil engineer 92pc male £910 
    Social worker 21pc male £920 
    Plasterer 98pc male £950

I had an idea that retirement annuities etc, which are a much bigger deal, were much more regulated & could only price based on a few numbers. But I don't have a link.

[oligopoly]

It was big news at the time in Europe as it affected vast amount of people's bottom line (mine as well). Would be interesting to know if it was lobbied to some extend.

The premise was that women would pay the same amount as men lowering the rate (Good thing). But for everyone who have followed politics knew it's not going to be a so simple. You have countless of examples where companies just skirt around the law and it end up hurting consumers.

Pretty much sums many EU decisions. On paper they can seem decent enough but in reality not so much. And women were affected as well as you might imagine low income families took the biggest relative hit.