Soldato
Yeah but they do massively inflate your quote if you've been on a speed awareness course (and they're the only insurance group to do so in direct contradiction to government advice).
People named Mohammed apparently pay more for car insurance
- Thread starter dowie
- Start date
Soldato
Never let a good pun go to waste
Soldato
I said this before and I'm glad it came out in the open.
Religion is a protected category... also it is [current year], gender is a choice for some(I realise you were alluding to that with "kinda"). But the main point is that religion is protected and so quite blatantly using a name as a proxy could easily be dodgy.
Age is also a protected category, young people pay more for insurance though though. how is this different? althought it seems the story is not true anyway!
Soldato
Admiral actually sent me an email stating that this isn't at all true. I got it before I knew anything about this so I found it funny.
Caporegime
You know, I’m always leery of this sort of thing, but I’ve driven in Leicester in the past, and Bolton latterly. I’m surprised the increase in quotes isn’t higher. It seems a lot of Asian folk cannot drive... Literally in some cases. A woman in Bolton once asked me to reverse her automatic car into a parking bay in a car park as she couldn’t do it. It was my first time driving an automatic. Fun times.
Caporegime
I got that email as well, in similar circumstances, was like wtf.
Caporegime
I've posted on here before about this but...where I used to work there were a series of railway bridges. One day one of them had some roadworks under one half. A woman (Asian) pulled up, stopped and wouldn't go through. Caused a massive tailback. In the end the bloke in the car in front of me got out and knocked on her window. Turned out she wouldn't go through because the gap was 'too narrow' and her Q7 wouldn't fit. The bloke drove the car through for her. He then got back in his, an A4 and got through. I got through in a 320d. The bus (one of those compact singledecker things) behind me then got through...
That's right. She couldn't fit through a gap but a bus could.
That's why they use proxy variables. Pink car = probably a woman etc.
Surely you could pull some stats for all sorts of incidental characteristics tho.
"People with freckles pay on average 2% more."
"Single-parents with one child pay £100 more on average than couples with four children."
All of those might be true, but not actively used to determine policy costs... merely a certain view of the data. They show correlation not causation.
Maybe the link is that people named Mohammed visit kebab shops more often, and roads near kebab shops are 5% more dangerous than other roads?
So you can't say it's discrimination, just a statistical view of the data. You could spin reports of that same data to show just about any category of person is paying more/less than another category.
"People with freckles pay on average 2% more."
"Single-parents with one child pay £100 more on average than couples with four children."
All of those might be true, but not actively used to determine policy costs... merely a certain view of the data. They show correlation not causation.
Maybe the link is that people named Mohammed visit kebab shops more often, and roads near kebab shops are 5% more dangerous than other roads?
So you can't say it's discrimination, just a statistical view of the data. You could spin reports of that same data to show just about any category of person is paying more/less than another category.
Soldato
Nailed it
Caporegime
This all day, it's just more fashionable to give something a fake Muslim spin.
Haha the accusations that most Asians are bad drivers is ridiculous! We've been taxiing you to the airport or back home from clubs since the 80's without complaint so I think that brush shouldn't be so broad.
Wait a minute... I've had two people go in to the back of me in the last couple of months, first was a cabbie named mohamed and the second was some fella named abdul ...
I retract my statement.
(Seriously though, yous be racialists)
Wait a minute... I've had two people go in to the back of me in the last couple of months, first was a cabbie named mohamed and the second was some fella named abdul ...
I retract my statement.
(Seriously though, yous be racialists)
Genius.
Caporegime
The entire point is that it appears it is being used to determine costs. They claim to have tested things with identical data apart from the name and got different results.
Caporegime
I said “a lot of”, not most. But hey, maybe it’s just a massive coincidence that certain people in bolton are terrible drivers. To be fair the main offence that riles me is pulling out from side roads without waiting for a gap. Maybe I should say that Asian drivers are incredibly impatient, would that be better?
Soldato
My initial reaction was the same as other people's- what if people called Mohammed crash more?
But thenI was discussing this with my partner and she brought up the point that a name alone does not make you more likely to crash. It may well be that Mohammeds crash more / less, but the name itself isn't going to influence someone's driving, it will be another or any number of factors (which may or may not be more prevalent in Mohammads, or may be unrelated and it is just a coincidence)
Age - yes, there is a direct correlation between age and driving experience for the age ranges that have heavily inflated insurance prices.
Job - yes, I don't have trouble believing there is correlation between job title, education, wealth (and therefore ability to afford a car that auto-brakes) amount of time on the road all of which could well influence amount of crashing that happens. But name - no I can't see how that affects someone's driving.
I am with Admiral and I did get a funny email saying "don't believe the news stories and there is no need for you to take further action" yeah I'll decide that for myself thanks.
But thenI was discussing this with my partner and she brought up the point that a name alone does not make you more likely to crash. It may well be that Mohammeds crash more / less, but the name itself isn't going to influence someone's driving, it will be another or any number of factors (which may or may not be more prevalent in Mohammads, or may be unrelated and it is just a coincidence)
Age - yes, there is a direct correlation between age and driving experience for the age ranges that have heavily inflated insurance prices.
Job - yes, I don't have trouble believing there is correlation between job title, education, wealth (and therefore ability to afford a car that auto-brakes) amount of time on the road all of which could well influence amount of crashing that happens. But name - no I can't see how that affects someone's driving.
I am with Admiral and I did get a funny email saying "don't believe the news stories and there is no need for you to take further action" yeah I'll decide that for myself thanks.
Soldato
You can prove anything with facts.
Caporegime
Actually...name can affect more than you think. People with certain names that are 'profession' linked are more likely to go in to that profession!
It's called nominative determinism.
Sue Yoo being a fantastic example.