Data by Age and Gender

When underwriting insurance policies, insurance companies base their rates on a wide variety of factors that may affect the claims cost they observe among their customers.  One factor that may affect certain policies such as Motor Insurance, Private Medical Insurance, Life Assurance, Annuities, Critical Illness and Income Protection is gender. 

From 6 April 2008, the Sex Discrimination (Amendment of Legislation) Regulations specify the conditions under which insurance companies are allowed to differentiate based on gender differences when pricing insurance policies.  One condition is that the use of gender as a factor in the assessment of risk is based on relevant and accurate statistical data.  A second condition is that this data must be compiled, published and regularly updated in accordance with guidance issued by HM Treasury.  A copy of this guidance is available through the following link:

Guidance on the publication of data associated with the use of gender in the assessment of insurance risk

Listed on the right of this webpage, there are a series of bulletins which illustrate the claims experience for men and women for insurance policies where gender-based differences may be used when underwriting policies.  For all other insurance policies, such as travel and property insurance, gender is not used as a factor when pricing these products so data has not been collected for these policies.  It is important to note that it is not possible to draw conclusions from information published in these bulletins about an individual’s premium.  This is due to a number of reasons listed below:

·           The data included in these bulletins is an industry average.  Under the Regulations, insurance companies may reflect their own data when pricing their policies providing this data is published independently or included in an industry aggregate.

·           Insurance companies will take account of factors other than age and gender when calculating premiums.  These factors will vary between each type of policy, but may include expenses and commission; underwriting practice; medical record; lifestyle; location and social group; age; postcode; usage; no-claims discount and type of vehicle.

·           Insurance companies may also take account of specific features of the policies they offer, such as guarantee periods and escalation.

Indeed, the Treasury’s guidance states that ‘This data must demonstrate the case for differing treatment based on gender, but it is highly unlikely to present a direct correlation with the premiums charged or the benefits obtained in individual cases’.

 

Data for life assurance and annuities; Critical Illness and Income Protection are available from the Continuous Mortality Investigation.  This can be accessed via the following link:
Continuous Mortality Investigation   
                                     

Contact

Please contact the statistics helpdesk with any queries about ABI data. Phone: 020 7216 7390 Email:  abistats@abi.org.uk For all other ABI queries please contact the ABI switchboard: Switchboard: 020 7600 3333 Email: info@abi.org.uk