ECJ bans use of gender in insurance pricing
Insurers will be prohibited from using gender when calculating premiums from 2012, a much-anticipated ruling from the European Coury of Justice (ECJ) has confirmed.
Although the equal treatment of men and women is already enshrined in European Union law, countries have enjoyed a derogation which enables insurers to take gender into account in pricing, "as long as they can ensure that underlying actuarial and statistical data on which the calculations are based are reliable, regularly updated and available to the public."
Following a case brought by a Belgian consumer association (Test-Acats), which called for this derogation to be abolished in Belgium, the ECJ has ruled that it "works against the achievement of the objective of equal treatment between men and women". It has now ruled that the derogation will be invalid from 21st December 2012. Unisex premiums and benefits will then be the rule.
The ruling will have a significant impact on the protection industry, which takes gender into account when pricing products including life insurance, critical illness insurance and income protection.
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