Motor Vehicles: Insurance

(asked on 5th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to ensure that car insurance premiums do not discriminate drivers because of their ethnicity.


Answered by
John Glen Portrait
John Glen
Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
This question was answered on 10th February 2020

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits firms from discriminating against consumers with most protected characteristics, one of which is race. Insurers can only discriminate based on a limited range of characteristics if they can provide objective, accurate, and reliable evidence that the consumer is at a higher risk of making a claim, and if the information they used to assess the application was used in a reasonable way.

Furthermore, firms are required to treat consumers fairly under the Financial Conduct Authority’s rules. The FCA is empowered to address misconduct, and where this has occurred it can undertake full investigations, and as a result impose financial penalties or even order firms to cease certain activities.

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