Comment 5


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LOST IN TRANSLATION Clever – and forward – thinking is the only way to engender change in Europe


During the 1980s a British government minister saved the humble sausage from being renamed an “emulsified high-fat offal tube” by European bureaucrats, winning the hearts and minds of the British public. This minister was Jim Hacker, star ofY


es Minister, a projection of


the nation’s desire for a political hero who would tell the pen-pushers in Brussels where to get off. Since this fictional victory, reality has reflected art, with EU directives


providing the British press with a steady stream of stories to meet the public’s hunger for examples of “political correctness gone mad”. The latest of these is the decision of the European Court of Justice to ban insurers from using gender to calculate premiums(page 20), prompting one red-top to dub the legislators “premium prats”. The problem with the


understandable outcry, however, was timing. This was one horse that had definitely bolted. So, what now? If the gender ruling is a done deal – and it is – what should financial advisers be doing in


the meantime? As Roger Edwards of Bright Grey and Scottish provident comments in our report, perhaps the best course of action is to simply get down to business. With so many people lacking any financial protection at all, the threat of future repricing is no excuse for inertia. The debate exposed the tension between the principle of gender equality and the insurance industry’s


contention that a person’s sex is a statistically valid indicator of the risk that he or she represents. Now, the line between discrimination and differentiation will once again be scrutinised when the European Council turns its attention to two other factors currently used to assess risk: age and disability. Insurers are understandably concerned about “mission creep” as legislators seek to purge the insurance industry of all practices deemed discriminatory. There are signs that the British Government may intervene. When asked about the gender ruling prior to


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its publication, David Cameron told MPs: “We have to get much better at risk-assessing and then stopping so much of the damaging regulation coming out of Brussels.” Yet to date, it has been left to the industry to go head-to-head with the policymakers in Europe. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) received criticism in the wake of the gender ruling for failing to


make more noise in opposition, yet as our report on page 20 shows, extensive backdoor lobbying had been underway for years to try to prevent the eventual outcome. The potential unintended consequences of well-meaning anti-age and disability discrimination is real


and worrying – perhaps much more so even than the ruling on gender. Even still, while such rulings from Europe can seem equally baffling and frustrating, a collective stamping of feet after the fact will do little to change the course of legislation once a court’s wheels are in motion. Considered, committed and professional lobbying remains the only viable course of action.


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