Financially female

“David” is a female for financial purposes. The young Alberta man has taken the unusual step of changing his gender identification in order to save money on his car insurance.

Like many men of his age, David wanted to get a car “with all the trimmings” but would have been it with an insurance bill of several thousand dollars to get it.

On an impulse, he inquired of the insurance agency how much the insurance would cost if he were a female.  He learned he would save more than $1,000 a year.

That was all the incentive he needed, and the young man did all the paperwork to become a young woman. At least on paper! David says he still identifies as a man, but is happy to be a woman to save the money.

David's story may be rather unusual but it highlights an inequality in the insurance industry which will only get more complicated as provinces alter the rules regarding gender identification.

It has long been the norm in the car insurance business that males under 25 are considered a higher risk than females of the same age range and so pay higher premiums. This is what led David to make his gender change.

But now many provinces are amending the regulations to allow individuals to use an X as identifying gender if they do not wish to identify as either male or female. 

So how will this impact insurance premiums for these young people?  Will X's be considered better risks than M's? Could they be considered worse risks than F's? Will the risk factor of an X be decided by whether they are dressed as a man or a woman when they apply for the insurance?

X clearly is the unknown here!

Frank Likely is a retired Anglican minister living in Springhill.