Pricing of our products

We review our premium rates each year, to ensure that they are competitive and meet our Members’ needs. The premium rates are based on factors such as age, gender, use of tobacco and, in some circumstances, medical history.

The EU Gender Directive (Council Directive 2004/113/ec) sets out requirements for equal treatment between men and women. In particular it prohibits, in principle, the use of gender as a criterion in the calculation of insurance premiums for new contracts.

However, the UK government has used an option under the Directive to allow life insurers to set differential premium rates. This option resulted in the introduction of the Sex Discrimination (Amendment of Legislation) Regulations 2008 which came into force on 6 April 2008.

These regulations require us to publish statistics regarding the use of gender as an assessment of risk. For all income protection policies issued after 1 January 2008 we have used gender as a factor in the assessment of risk and we charge different premiums for males and females.

In accordance with guidance issued by HM Treasury, we have provided a link to the Institute of Actuaries website, which contains industry-wide statistics by gender:

Institute of Actuaries - Gender Statistics

This document illustrates differences in claims experience between men and women for income protection insurance written in the UK.