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From: seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Allstate Insurance says women don't deserve equal pay with men
Message-ID: <1129@ihuxl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-May-84 08:56:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxl.1129
Posted: Tue May 22 08:56:11 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 23-May-84 09:48:51 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
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> Brad Templeton (looking!brad):
> 	I have never heard a complaint about the fact that Allstate will sell
> 	car insurance to a woman for FAR less than to a man, in spite of the
> 	fact they have equal driving records.  As far as I am concerned, this
> 	"guilty until proven innocent" attitude of the insurance companies is
> 	one of the worst kinds of sexism around ...
> 
> But if you charge women a premium equal to men, even though their
> accident statistics are lower, then you are discriminating against women.
> To my mind, THIS is sexist.  However, the last thing I heard, such a
> change was in fact going to be introduced here, on the grounds you give.
> 
> Do you approve of higher premiums for drivers under 25 who have not had
> accidents?  I do.  Ideally, the insurance companies would study the way
> you, the individual, drive before they set your premium.  That's impractical.
> The best approximation available is to use all the relevant statistical data.
> 
> In the name of sexual equality, let's keep men's premiums higher.
> 
> I don't pay these premiums these days, because I don't have a car.
> When I lived with my father, however, I was paying premiums on his car.
> Mark Brader

The whole idea of insurance is legalized gambling.  You're
placing a bet with the insurance company.  If a catastrophe
happens (car accident, house burns down, early death, etc)
they pay off, otherwise you lose your premium.  You're
sharing the risk with a large pool of people.  You take
a small (sic) certain loss to prevent a large uncertain loss.

Unfortunately, this has turned into a giant racket.  To save
face, the crooks try and make things "fair" by attempting to
charge more to people who are "likely" to have claims, and
less to people who are "unlikely" to have claims.  This, taken
to it's logical conclusion,  would have the people "likely"
to have claims paying for all the claims, plus the cost of
the red tape, with the people "unlikely" to have claims
paying nothing.  Thus worse than no insurance at all.

I notice they charge more if you're male(!?), under 25(!?), and
unmarried (!?).  They also charge more if you drive a car
capable of avoiding accidents (!?) and of protecting you
on the rare occasion when the accident is unavoidable (!?).

They don't seem to care if you wear seatbelts, preferring
to spend vast sums of money promoting explosion-bags.
They don't adjust rates for the morons who drink and drive.
They don't lower your rates if you take a high-performance
driving school, which increases accident avoidance ability
tremendously.

I could see charging slightly more the first year, because
of inexperience, but nine years????? What does gender or
marital status have to do with driving ability? Nothing!
-- 
	_____
       /_____\	   	    That auto-crossing beagle,
      /_______\			      Snoopy
	|___|		    BMWCCA, Windy City Chapter
    ____|___|_____	       ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert