European Gender Car Insurance Ruling To Affect South African Drivers

March 7 - An exclusive European ruling on the use of gender in rating insurance risks may affect South African motorists in the long run.

The European Court of Justice ruled that it will not be lawful to use gender as a means to price car insurance products, despite the fact that men were responsible for the vast majority of dangerous accidents in the 27 European Union countries affected by the ruling.

Contrary to what men like to believe, women are better drivers and this can be seen through facts and figures reported by European insurance groups. In 2009, men were responsible for 95% of dangerous driving cases in the UK, while they were also responsible for 83% of careless driving cases.

However, because insurance groups are not allowed to offer female drivers cheaper premiums based solely on their gender from next year, these companies are turning to other technologies to help set their rates.

The ruling is likely to increase the use of telematics technology, which is developed by groups such as MiX Telematics.

This technology has become more sophisticated in recent years and makes it possible to rate motorists on how they drive.

Sensors monitor, for example, how quickly drivers accelerate and break, and how quickly they turn a corner.

As such, the use of telematics can be used to check how well motorists drive and their score will determine their insurance premiums.

It is believed that South African insurance groups will also start to use telematics in their rating if this system should become more popular in Europe.

"Perhaps this is the fairest way to proceed and in future we could see people actually paying for the risk their driving style presents," said Rhys Collins of SSP.