Pricing of critical illness policies could become less reliable and perhaps more expensive if the government puts forward regulations which state insurers can only use public data to calculate premiums for men and women.
The Equal Treatment Directive, introduced by the European Commission in December 2004, prohibits the use of gender as a criteria in the calculation of premiums and benefits for the purposes of insurance and related financial services. Member states are entitled to use an opt-out clause in the directive which permits such practices where gender is a determining factor in the assessment of risk, based on relevant and accurate data available to the public. The UK government has said it will take advantage of the opt-out clause, but Nick Kirwan, protection market director at Scottish Widows...
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