Gender on the agenda

A decision on whether insurance firms should be barred from offering lower car insurance rates to women has been put back to December.

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A decision on whether insurance firms should be barred from offering lower car insurance rates to women has been put back to December.

The European Commission wants to ban insurers from using gender to establish risk. This would prevent them offering women cheaper insurance premiums, even though they are statistically far less likely to be involved in a road accident.

European ministers began debating the European Commission directive on gender equality on Monday but have now decided to put the issue on hold until the end of the year.

The commission had said it would drop the directive after it failed to win the support of the Council of Ministers earlier this year, but last month it decided to press ahead regardless.

The Association of British Insurers believes gender is a reasonable tool for setting premiums. It said it remained hopeful the directive would not be passed after discussions started on Monday. However, it was disappointed the matter could not have been resolved this week.