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Canadian man changes gender on government IDs for cheaper car insurance

83 points| breitling | 7 years ago |cbc.ca | reply

114 comments

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[+] GhostVII|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] derefr|7 years ago|reply
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.

[+] titanix2|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] friedButter|7 years ago|reply
Usually its considered OK to discriminate against a historically privileged class...
[+] cameldrv|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] thrden|7 years ago|reply
That doesn't seem like splitting the difference as much as putting the costs on men...
[+] tudelo|7 years ago|reply
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".
[+] QasimK|7 years ago|reply
As a society you can make it illegal to discriminate on factors that a person has no control over.
[+] derefr|7 years ago|reply
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”?
[+] i_am_nomad|7 years ago|reply
They’ll just buy your demographic profile from a broker for a pittance and use that.
[+] stavrianos|7 years ago|reply
Easy: anyone who isn't specified gets the higher rate.
[+] lykr0n|7 years ago|reply
Change it to "Sex" or add have both "Sex" and "Gender" fields.
[+] quxbar|7 years ago|reply
Let's see if he'll keep the identification when he next applies for a job or a home loan?
[+] dsfafsdaf|7 years ago|reply
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.

[+] DoctorOetker|7 years ago|reply
"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...

/s

[+] friedButter|7 years ago|reply
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
[+] theandrewbailey|7 years ago|reply
Depends on where the application goes to. Many companies want to appear politically progressive.
[+] LordDragonfang|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] EMRZ|7 years ago|reply
Here in Argentina a man from Salta changed his gender to retire early.
[+] tathougies|7 years ago|reply
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.

[+] notadoc|7 years ago|reply
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?

[+] donald123|7 years ago|reply
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?
[+] empthought|7 years ago|reply
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.)
[+] janlukacs|7 years ago|reply
The amount of attention and resources spent on "genderism" in the western world is really astounding and accelerating. One has to ask why?
[+] aequitas|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] dsfyu404ed|7 years ago|reply
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|7 years ago|reply
How the could car insurance cost $4500 a year? What are you doing in Canada?
[+] breitling|7 years ago|reply
The icing on the cake is that he's not even in an area known for expensive insurance (Toronto)
[+] mrtron|7 years ago|reply
Minimum coverage is fairly comprehensive, and they love to charge the hell out of younger folks.
[+] slavik81|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] walrus01|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] stuckinarut|7 years ago|reply
Accidents and multiple tickets crank it way up.
[+] reaperducer|7 years ago|reply
Next step: Olympic gold!
[+] morgtheborg|7 years ago|reply
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.

[+] stuckinarut|7 years ago|reply
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.

[+] ythn|7 years ago|reply

[deleted]

[+] schappim|7 years ago|reply
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[+] tomp|7 years ago|reply
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...
[+] ythn|7 years ago|reply
Define "discrimination"

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

[+] 1996|7 years ago|reply
> "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!!"

[+] jedberg|7 years ago|reply
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.

[+] quxbar|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] kansface|7 years ago|reply
> 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.

[+] tathougies|7 years ago|reply
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.