Insurer plans to speak directly to MEPs about outlawing gender consideration in insurance policies
Female-only insurer Sheilas’ Wheels communications head Adrian Webb is heading to Brussels in late November to speak directly to MEPs about the company’s concerns over discrimination in insurance policies.
The UK motor insurance industry is keeping a close watch on an EU court case which, if it succeeds, could ban underwriters from pricing differently for male and female drivers.
On 30 September, EU advocate-general Juliane Kokott announced that taking the gender of a person into consideration for insurance purposes is discriminatory.
Sheilas’ Wheels is particularly concerned about implications for other personal insurance lines if sex discrimination is banned.
In a statement in September, Conservative MEP Ashley Fox said: "It is simply madness to wipe out a whole market on what is effectively the whim of the advocate-general."
Although Kokott’s opinion is not automatically binding, advocate-general opinions are followed in around 80% of cases at the European Court of Justice.
Sheilas’ Wheels is studying the remaining 20% of cases to find a procedural loophole for insurers.
