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Path: utzoo!watmath!watcgl!dmmartindale
From: dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Sexism in insurance prices
Message-ID: <2602@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-May-84 15:12:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2602
Posted: Thu May 24 15:12:49 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 26-May-84 13:23:12 EDT
References: <149@looking.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 33

The argument in favour of charging all men in some group the same insurance
rate is that it is statistically valid and, I suppose, easier to treat
all men as a member of a group rather than evaluating each one individually.

The argument in favour of not discriminating against women in hiring,
even if it is statistically justfied, is that it is unfair to the individual.

It seems that somewhere society has decided that in issues related to hiring
and pay, justice for the individual is more important than the convenience
of the employer, but that in issuing insurance policies the convenience
of the insurer may override considerations of rates tailored to the individual.
Everyone agree so far?

Now, it seems that this difference in treatment might be justified on the
grounds that the company has to look at each applicant being considered
for a job individually anyway so there is no reason not to treat them as
individuals, but in the case of insurance it would be difficult or expensive
or both to determine methods of assessing risk individually for each
applicant.  I'm not saying that this is fair, just that there is at least
an argument why different policies could be used in these different cases.

However, I see absolutely no difference between setting auto insurance
premiums based on sex and setting life insurance premiums (or, alternately,
benefits) based on sex.  It is simply unfair for sex to be ignored in
places where that benefits women, and for sex to be taken into consideration
where *that* benefits women instead.

A question to the readers: given a choice between insurance companies
charging the same rates regardless of sex for all types of insurance
or using sex to determine rates for all types of insurance, which
system would you choose?

	Dave Martindale