Canadian man changes gender on government IDs for cheaper car insurance

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/change-gender-identification-insurance-alberta-1.4754416?cmp=rss

by breitling • 8 years ago

83 109 8 years ago

cbc.ca

reaperducer• 8 years ago

Next step: Olympic gold!

stuckinarut2• 8 years ago

I feel like that would be mocking.

This is pretty great though. Is it a bit of an abuse of the system, sure. But honestly, if he's being charged more for the same record just because he's a man then I approve of him doing this.

Course I'm a bit annoyed with insurance right now. I made a mistake about 1.5 years ago and was speeding. It was empty highway and I made the stupid decision to go too fast. Got caught.

This is, I paid my fine. I have no accidents, no other tickets. I'm still stuck paying massively increased premiums for years.

morgtheborg3• 8 years ago

Gender identity is one thing, power to you, but at the point we start to let males compete in females sport we've lost our minds.

How do we make it fair? Is it sufficient to lower T to get rid of the advantage? What about females who naturally have higher T levels?

What if, shockingly /s, bone density and height are relevant as an advantage in some sports?

God, I hate even thinking about it.

Transgender rights > Female rights, with the harm going to female athletes. How unsurprisingly sexist.

ccozan• 8 years ago

I am actually a fan from Serena, but could not hide the fact that she might have a slight advantage....

empthought4• 8 years ago

The world record women's 800m time is surpassed regularly by high school boys.

belorn2• 8 years ago

We already have that problem with genetics interfering with sports. Height has a strong correlation in basketball, and blood levels with endurance sport. Weight and height are used to limit unfair competition in horse racing and boxing.

So one way to keep our minds and still eliminating segregated women and men sport is to segregate based on other attributes that correlate to an unfair advantage, just like those examples above.

schappim• 8 years ago

ythn• 8 years ago

Define "discrimination"

Is is discrimination to require a fitness test be taken for certain jobs/insurance?

gameswithgo• 8 years ago

Discriminating based on fitness instead of gender is exactly the sort of thing one should do, if fitness is really what you are worried about.

That way, the occasional woman who is if fit enough can still do the thing that needs doing, and flipping genders on your birth cert doesn't game the system.

tomp4• 8 years ago

How about non-unisex toilets and women-only domestic violence shelters? Personally, I oppose them, but it appears that most people support them, "discrimination" not-withstanding...

dsfafsdaf3• 8 years ago

"women-only domestic violence shelters" what exactly do you oppose? That there are no equivalent men's shelters, or that men aren't allowed in?

To this day my wife refuses to tell any man the location of her shelter from when her ex abused her. Might not fit into the modern gender zeitgeist, but I fully support her.

dsfyu404ed• 8 years ago

Well we've all thought of it now someone's done it (well lots of people have probably done it, this guy is just the first one to risk telling people he's done it). $91/mo adds up.

kolbe• 8 years ago

How the could car insurance cost $4500 a year? What are you doing in Canada?

breitling• 8 years ago

The icing on the cake is that he's not even in an area known for expensive insurance (Toronto)

stuckinarut2• 8 years ago

Accidents and multiple tickets crank it way up.

mrtron• 8 years ago

Minimum coverage is fairly comprehensive, and they love to charge the hell out of younger folks.

theandrewbailey2• 8 years ago

If a car loan is involved, maximum insurance might be required as a condition. Combining that with young male driver, you get a very large number. Also, Canadian dollars, not USD.

nikanj• 8 years ago

https://globalnews.ca/news/2447804/metro-vancouver-the-luxur...

Repair costs go hand-in-hand with car prices. Add in icy roads for extra fun.

slavik81• 8 years ago

It's a $30,000 car and the insurance is probably comprehensive. He could save money by only buying 3rdparty liability (the legally required coverage). If you could afford to replace the car, that's usually the better option.

qbrass• 8 years ago

The problem with just having liability is that it greatly reduces the responsibility of others to repair or replace your car if they hit it. Depending on where you live, you might only get a few hundred dollars from them if they total your car.

You may be willing to pay out of pocket if you crash your $30,000 car into a tree, but you'll probably want someone else to pay for it if they run into it while it's parked.

walrus01• 8 years ago

He's in Alberta, which has privately run competition in auto liability insurance. It's BC where ICBC has a government-mandated monopoly on the liability insurance. You can only buy private comprehensive in BC.

tudelo2• 8 years ago

I wonder... is there any good solution to this issue from either side? Outside of legitimate gender change (bear with me -- I know some of you don't think this is possible but lets go with the assumption) can you really blame the guy? And as an insurance company what can you do about it? I would say maybe we could have flat rates but then that just incentivizes the "good" class to go to an insurer who values their "goodness".

QasimK3• 8 years ago

As a society you can make it illegal to discriminate on factors that a person has no control over.

tudelo2• 8 years ago

Is paying different amounts based on measured risk factor really discrimination in the way you intend it?

oh_sigh3• 8 years ago

Per the article the EU already banned gender discrimination for insurance rates in 2011. Catch up Canada!

I wonder why it is that car insurance charges higher rates to young males(who on average cost more than young females), but medical insurance as far as I can tell is equally priced for young men and young women, even though young women generally have higher health care costs than young men(primarily through childbirth and greater use of health services).

I don't want to be cynical but I imagine if a health care company in the US or Canada actually did start charging more for some class of young women vs young men, it would make international news and lead to new anti-discrimination laws for health insurance

rich-and-poor2• 8 years ago

BRB, making it illegal to discriminate between dates based on physical appearance.

tomp4• 8 years ago

So, like, salary? After all, you can't control your intelligence...

occamrazor• 8 years ago

BTW in the EU it’s illegal, since a EU court sentence of 2012, to use sex or gender as a rating factor in insurance.

devtul• 8 years ago

Let's turn this around, people have characteristics that they don't choose and can't change, but those characteristics have an impact, on average, on some real-life aspects. Would ignoring that be a net gain over whatever would be gained by not ignoring it?

GhostVII3• 8 years ago

It's interesting how people generally consider it acceptable for insurance companies to discriminate based on gender, when that discrimination would probably not be considered OK in other areas. You don't choose your gender, why should you be punished for it? Would people also be OK if insurance companies discriminated based on race? Surely there is some correlation between race and collision risk as well.

derefr2• 8 years ago

I know you’re trying to do a reductio ad absurdam here, but insurance companies already do discriminate based on race. In fact, it would be irresponsible for medical insurance providers, in particular, to not discriminate (that is, have different premiums) based on race.

Black people have more heart attacks, white people are more likely to develop Seasonal Affective Disorder in the same geographic region, etc. It’s nothing to do with predicting behaviour, it’s just differing physiologies, causing different levels of risk of certain physiological conditions irrespective of the choices we make or how we’re raised.

As well, different races respond better or worse to different drugs. There might be a cheap way to treat hispanic people for a condition but only an expensive way to treat any other race. In that situation, if there was actuarial data saying that Hispanic person A and non-Hispanic person B had an equal chance of developing that condition, it would make sense for person B’s premiums to be higher, no?

If you can predict, per person, not only the chance of an event causing a condition requiring an insurance-covered response; but also predict, per person, the size of the total insurance pay-out from a given event, then people who will need more expensive treatments for the same condition will need higher premiums. It’s like flood insurance: insuring a house closer to the coast costs more, but insuring a larger house also costs more. Because the pay-out will have to be higher to fix a larger house, even though the flood was the same. Same damage—more expensive solution required.

GhostVII3• 8 years ago

Wow, I had no idea they discriminated based on race, that sounds kind of wrong to me. I mean for medical purposes it makes sense, do they also do it for auto insurance, where, in theory, your race does not make a difference?

rdl• 8 years ago

In the US, it is illegal to use race (or gender), both of which are highly predictive of health care costs. You can use age and smoking, but that’s about it, at least on individual issuance under ACA. The age increase is about 50% of what the true actuarial cost is, so the young subsidize the old.

The result is a healthy 26mo white man gets overcharged and a pregnant, unhealthy, overweight 40yo black woman is undercharged. Usually this just means the 26yo chooses not to get insurance.

(Men are cheaper because they don’t have as many routine medical exams, they don’t go in to the doctor generally even when they should, they don’t get pregnant and their health problems seem to include sudden out-of-hospital death more than chronic conditions. That makes them substantially cheaper to insure even if not actually “healthier”.)

Pre existing conditions and known upcoming things (like, planning to get pregnant) or superior knowledge of one’s health status and risk profile make health insurance a really defective marketplace.

klipt2• 8 years ago

Insurers are legally forbidden from using race directly. Two people of different races who list identical details on their application should receive identical quotes.

The ACA provides a similar legal protection for gender in health insurance. We just need to extend that protection to car insurance.

jazzyk• 8 years ago

Black people have more heart attacks,

Nothing to do with race, more about social standing. Black people tend to be less educated/affluent. Poor diet -> obesity -> heart attacks. 33% of whites are obese, while 48% of blacks are obese. Much more information can be found here: https://stateofobesity.org/disparities/

white people are more likely to develop Seasonal Affective Disorder in the same geographic region, etc.

Again, nothing to do with race. White people tend to live in places like Alaska, Maine, etc. which have long and cold (and dark) winters.

titanix2• 8 years ago

It seems that each time a discrimination is in favor of women, there is no debate about it. It’s a strong hint that the self-named gender equality movement is not what it pretends it is.

kingofpandora2• 8 years ago

Yeah this is totally the fault of feminists.

friedButter4• 8 years ago

Usually its considered OK to discriminate against a historically privileged class...

derefr2• 8 years ago

British Columbia will soon support answering “not specified” for gender on identity documents. I wonder how insurance providers will cope with that. Will they demand you tell them a gender? Will they try to infer it? Will they use low-statistical-power actuarial data for the insurance usage rates of “not-specified people”?

lykr0n7• 8 years ago

Change it to "Sex" or add have both "Sex" and "Gender" fields.

i_am_nomad• 8 years ago

They’ll just buy your demographic profile from a broker for a pittance and use that.

stavrianos• 8 years ago

Easy: anyone who isn't specified gets the higher rate.

empthought4• 8 years ago

This is exactly correct.

jedberg6• 8 years ago

This is a perfect example of "AI gone wrong" even though there was no AI involved.

The costs of insurance are based on actuarial tables, which are really just calculations based on large chunks of historical data, much like an AI. And much like an AI, the result essentially magnifies the biases that already exist in the data (biases that may be accurate or may not be).

The tables, nor the AI, care about ethics or perception. They are simply the result of the inputs given.

Do men really have more tickets and accidents? Maybe. Or maybe they just get caught more.

It just highlights how careful we have to be about biases, real or accidental, as we rely more and more on mathematical models based on data.

tathougies3• 8 years ago

This has nothing to do with AI. Men have been charged more for car insurance (at least in America) for many years. I mean, when my brother got his license almost 15 years ago, he was charged more, and so was I when I got mine.

jedberg6• 8 years ago

Yes I know, that's why I said "even though it has nothing to do with AI".

quxbar2• 8 years ago

Men measurably impact the bottom line of insurance companies more. Actuarial math is not 'AI', there's no 'magnification of bias'. The whole point of the calculation is to eliminate bias so that the company makes sound decisions. Please don't generalize things that you haven't made an effort to understand. When you say stuff like this, you're making it harder to fight actual bias in the world, because you make people not take your point seriously.

jedberg6• 8 years ago

I have a pretty deep understanding actually.

Please explain to me how making an actuarial table with different data sets would get you the same answer without bias.

kansface2• 8 years ago

Do men really have more tickets and accidents? Maybe. Or maybe they just get caught more.

The internet seems to indicate that men do cause more accidents, but they also drive more on average. Insurers would only be interested in the likelihood of a payout, so they should rationally charge men more. Also, men get far more DUIs (big payout).

* NOTE: not a rigorous investigation of the numbers.

friedButter4• 8 years ago

Women get pregnant more than men, but get charged the same medical insurance rates. Women take maternity leave more than men, but legally you cannot pay women less. How come in scenarios where women cost more, it is mandated that men and women must pay the same, but not in cases where men cost more?

notadoc• 8 years ago

Is it gender discrimination to charge one gender more than another for the same service?

And if so, and more broadly, is there a problem with changing gender identification to gain a preferential price or service?

quxbar2• 8 years ago

Let's see if he'll keep the identification when he next applies for a job or a home loan?

dsfafsdaf3• 8 years ago

Why not?

IIRC, in Canada, its illegal to ask those questions during the application.

Then, when HR is doing their diversity calculations, he boosts their employed woman trans numbers.

Don't see him loosing out much.

theandrewbailey2• 8 years ago

Depends on where the application goes to. Many companies want to appear politically progressive.

DoctorOetker2• 8 years ago

"A crossdresser can dress like a woman in the weekends, and dress like a man during the week. Who is the goverment to tell me to keep the same sex all the time?!!!1"

how about legally recognized "contextual gender", i.e. a woman while driving the car, a man while applying jobs etc...

friedButter4• 8 years ago

A male pretending to be a female has an edge over males,females and females pretending to be male when applying for jobs.. Atleast in an unscientific study by interviewing.io

1996• 8 years ago

"I'm a man, 100 per cent. Legally, I'm a woman," he said.
"I did it for cheaper car insurance."

Yeah, I see what you did.

"it's because of the insurance!! I swear!!"

marianov• 8 years ago

An man in Argentina changed legal gender so he can retire earlier : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5544173/Argentinian-...

tathougies3• 8 years ago

how is it okay that a woman can retire earlier? Men die earlier than women as it is, so this law effectively doubles the amount of time women can enjoy retirement..

LordDragonfang• 8 years ago

So the simple solution to this type of manipulation is adding a part to the gender change request that says "I swear under threat of legal penalty that I identify as [gender]". Doesn't hurt trans people and makes abuses of the system like this clear cases of legal fraud.

natrik2• 8 years ago

How would you be able to tell the difference between actual personal identification and a lie?

donald123• 8 years ago

What if the insurance company used machine learning to calculate the premium, which resulted in correlations with gender, race, etc.? Is that also considered discrimination?Whose fault is that?

empthought4• 8 years ago

You would have to show that gender/race were not inputs to the machine learning algorithm. Correlations with inputs that were not restricted would not be a problem (in many situations ZIP code is "close enough" for race.)

janlukacs2• 8 years ago

The amount of attention and resources spent on "genderism" in the western world is really astounding and accelerating. One has to ask why?

tathougies3• 8 years ago

Favorite quote:

"If you're going to declare on any document, you need to be truthful," he said. "If not, you're making a fraudulent claim. This could impact you for any future insurance application that you make, or any other aspect of your life."

Unless the insurance commissioner is going to provide an objective definition of gender that can be externally and independently verified, I'm afraid that he really has no grounds on which to claim David is a man, rather than a gender-nonconforming woman who prefers male pronouns.

cameldrv2• 8 years ago

It’s a tough philosophical question as to whether it is fair to discriminate based on gender to determine insurance rates. In the U.S. we split the difference. For car insurance and life insurance, where men have significantly greater risk, men pay more, because they cost the insurance company more. For health insurance, where women cost the insurance company more, insurance companies are forced to charge the same rates, because it’s wrong to make someone pay more for something based on an inherent trait they have no control over.

perl4ever• 8 years ago

"For health insurance, where women cost the insurance company more, insurance companies are forced to charge the same rates, because it’s wrong to make someone pay more for something based on an inherent trait they have no control over."

I don't think this hypothesis is consistent with the fact that ACA plan rates depend on your age, which you have no control over.

cameldrv2• 8 years ago

They split the baby on that one too. Old people can only be charged 3x as much as young people, but the actuarial difference between an 18 year old and a 65 year old is something like 10x, which used to be the price difference too.

thrden• 8 years ago

That doesn't seem like splitting the difference as much as putting the costs on men...

rabboRubble2• 8 years ago

Obviously you never tried getting private insurance that covers pregnancy pre-ACA. Always a separate rider, always expensive. Whoopsie if you didn't catch that fact, failed to get a separate rider, then went on to have pregnancy complication. Hello bankruptcy! Hell, even with the pregnancy rider, a complicated pregnancy put a lot of insured people into the poorhouse.

friedButter4• 8 years ago

How is it splitting the difference when the choices are

1) men pay more

2) men and women pay the same

aequitas• 8 years ago

In the Netherlands we had a similar thing. An car insurance marketed specifically to woman, with lower rates, nice pink website and you even got a free purse as a welcome gift. But due to anti-discrimination laws you could simply apply as a man as well, if you could stand the pink website. Of course you got the free purse as well.

EMRZ• 8 years ago

Here in Argentina a man from Salta changed his gender to retire early.

Canadian man changes gender on government IDs for cheaper car insurance

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