So will mens permiums drop.... No womens will cost more. Nice one EU [/sarcasm]

What next? Age related descrimination claims? 17 year olds taking the insurance companies to court? Even if they did and they EU found in their favour, all the insurance companies would do is charge a lot more for people who haven't had their license long (technically everyone who's just past their test, ie all 17 year olds and some 40 year olds etc, so no age discrimination), and offer bigger % no claims discounts to keep the price the same as now for experienced older drivers.
The question is, how would an age discrimination ban affect old people? (eg People in their 80's etc) They can be a serious menace (trust me I've seen some things in my time) but it would be hard for insurance companies to price them off the roads as they may have years of no claims bonuses. I could see such a situation leading to compulsary medicals by insurance companies to ensure old people are capable of the physical movements/reaction times needed to drive safely. They may not be able to legally get them with "age", but they can get them with "physical ability" as in theory that could be applied to anyone.

How is that the EU's fault? It's the insurance companies' decision!

Apparently they can still use gender as insurance risk factor if they use up-to-date stats and make them available, which seems reasonable.

Most young lads I know now and have ever known (myself included) drive like utter tools for the first couple of years. The testosterone fuelled antics of these early years (statistically) lead to more expensive claims. Most younger women drivers I've experienced will hit a curb/post/hedge/other car with greater frequency than the boys, but these claims cost less (statistics again), if they even claim at all.

That's how we arrived at the current system. Young women aren't safer - they're a better risk, because their claims have historically been cheaper. I've written off two cars back in the day, but learnt a lot from both accidents and changed my behaviour as a result. I know lots of younger women whose spacial awareness is still shocking after several years of driving.

+1

I renewed 2 months ago and managed to get a quote for £450 (but only if I put my stepmum as a named driver on the policy).

I had a quote from Aviva which after removing the 20% they had for the offer came to over £1200!

In all cases if I did the same search (i.e. same name, same address, same age, same car, same no claims bonus, same job, same parking arrangements, etc...) but said I was female it knocked almost 50% off the premium.

I have 10years of driving history behind me. Why rely on the past experience of everyone else? Why not use my own history to work out the likelyhood of me crashing?

With my quote from Aviva, if I didn't laugh I would have thrown my monitor out the window.

Also More Than were exactly that. More than everyone else.