The European Union could move to prohibit gender as a factor in determining insurance premiums, reports The Guardian.

Anna Diamantopoulou, the EU social affairs commissioner, argues that the insurance industry’s use of gender as a “ratable” (a means to assess value) is a form of sex discrimination. However, insurance companies argue that ignoring gender differences “runs counter to good sense."

Were this directive to take effect, it would have several impacts on women in the EU.

For example, women generally have cheaper car insurance premiums because they are believed to be safer drivers. If this directive went into effect British female motorists between ages 17 and 24 could see their premiums rise by 10-30% a year.

Additionally, women generally have less costly life insurance premiums due to greater life expectancy. Were gender-based mortality differences ignored, a 40-year-old British woman’s life insurance premium could be expected to rise by 16%, against an 8% fall in a 40-year-old man's premium.

However, women would benefit from a gender-neutral annunities market. On average, women receive lower payments than men from annuities due to longer life expectancy. As a result, by excluding gendered projections of life expectancy, the annual income a 60-year-old woman would be able to purchase would increase by 2% and the revenue a man of the same age could purchase would reduce by 3%.

In the United States some states already have statutes prohibiting sex discrimination in insurance. For more information on sex discrimination in insurance in the US, check out Jill Gualding's article "Race, Sex, and Genetic Discrimination in Insurance: What's fair?"