There’s been a lot of noise lately about insurers offering cheaper premiums to customers who identify as gender neutral who knew that even a drop-down menu can spark a national debate?
Diversity Council Australia (DCA) has given NRMA Insurance and Allianz a solid thumbs-up for adding a non-binary option to their motor policies and if your customers come in more than two flavours, your forms should too.
But when the media discovered that non-binary customers were sometimes getting lower quotes, things got lively. Cue talkback radio outrage, social-media warriors declaring they’d “just tick the box”, and a whole lot of people suddenly becoming experts in actuarial science.
Here’s what actually happened:
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Allianz matched its non-binary pricing to female pricing, which sat lower than the male rate.
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NRMA went one step further, offering non-binary customers a cheaper price than both.
Both insurers say the pricing will be refined as they gather more data — which is how insurance normally works. NRMA has already tweaked the wording of its gender question to: “What is your gender as shown on your passport or official documentation?” But as of today, the non-binary discount is still very much a thing.
DCA says offering a non-binary option is simple good practice. “For many people, having to choose ‘male’ or ‘female’ just doesn’t reflect who they are,” a spokesperson said.
The challenge? There’s not a lot of data yet. And without data, insurers can’t price accurately.