Is This Insurance Solicitation Discriminatory?

[wizard]

... a recent bank account statement i received included a brochure for an insurance product that the bank was selling. the insurance was strictly for women and it provided $50,000 worth of protection for women who were struck with a few very specific forms of cancer. is it discriminatory to market an insurance product to me (a man) that only applies to women?

... it did strike me as being discriminatory when i looked at it. shouldn't the bank sell insurance that all their clients can purchase and not just some of them?

 

[karrie]

Is it discriminatory to market prostate medications only to men? How about men's razors only to men? Shouldn't they have to broaden the ads so that women are included? What about cologne? I love to wear my hubby's cologne, why isn't it marketed to me?

 

[CDNBear]

Are you really tying to reason with wizzy, or did you forget sarcastic purple? lol

 

[karrie]

Are you really tying to reason with wizzy, or die you forget sarcastic purple? lol

I should have typed it in purple. lol

 

[lone wolf]

Oh, go ahead and buy it. Banks love the money....

 

[taxslave]

... a recent bank account statement i received included a brochure for an insurance product that the bank was selling. the insurance was strictly for women and it provided $50,000 worth of protection for women who were struck with a few very specific forms of cancer. is it discriminatory to market an insurance product to me (a man) that only applies to women?

... it did strike me as being discriminatory when i looked at it. shouldn't the bank sell insurance that all their clients can purchase and not just some of them?

Has your wife or your mother never got junk mail for penis enhancement? Its called bulk mailing. Goes to all bank customers. Selectively sending it out would probably be discriminatory. Besides how would they know if you wanted to take an insurance policy out on a female?

 

[bobnoorduyn]

Sure it's discriminatory, so what. I discriminate, we all do, it's human nature,otherwise we would just be robots. I believe in equality in discrimination, no exceptions, or else that would be discriminatory.

 

[lone wolf]

Meh.... I think wizzy's hoping for commissions from the linked sig line....

 

[alex_wan]

... actually insurance rates for men and women are quite different. One can consider it is also a kind of discrimination, though it just reflects risk profiles for each gender...

Recently I saw this tool that compares insurance costs for different consumer profiles including age: https://tools.insureye.com/pct/pricing

Especially in Life insurance the difference is huge! Women must have less stress in their lives! ;-)

 

[eh1eh]

Wizzy works for the bank.

Never buy insurance or investments from a bank. They will screw you dry on either as they are gouls.

Think for yourself. The only investment you should make in relation to a bank is buying their stock on the open market. Never, never actually let a bank 'handle' your money.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Never buy insurance or investments from a bank. They will screw you dry on either as they are gouls.

Excellent advice, I strongly second it, use banks only for banking, and if you have the option a credit union is a better idea than a bank anyway, from a consumer's perspective. Unless you're in charge of some business entity a substantial fraction of the size of the bank, they don't have to take you very seriously. Once when I was shopping around for a mortgage I took a close look at the group life insurance the bank offered on the mortgage amount. Looked like a pretty good rate, until I realized the premium would never change over the life of the mortgage, which means you're paying a premium based on the full amount of the original principle, regardless of how much of it you've paid off. Turned out to be far cheaper in the long run to buy declining term insurance from somebody else. That's just ONE of the subtle ways they'll try to screw you.

 

[Kreskin]

Excellent advice, I strongly second it, use banks only for banking, and if you have the option a credit union is a better idea than a bank anyway, from a consumer's perspective. Unless you're in charge of some business entity a substantial fraction of the size of the bank, they don't have to take you very seriously. Once when I was shopping around for a mortgage I took a close look at the group life insurance the bank offered on the mortgage amount. Looked like a pretty good rate, until I realized the premium would never change over the life of the mortgage, which means you're paying a premium based on the full amount of the original principle, regardless of how much of it you've paid off. Turned out to be far cheaper in the long run to buy declining term insurance from somebody else. That's just ONE of the subtle ways they'll try to screw you.

Assuming the term renewal premiums don't go up higher on the declining balance than the mortgage insurance premiums staying the same.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Wasn't even close.

 

[Ron in Regina]

... a recent bank account statement i received included a brochure for an insurance product that the bank was selling. the insurance was strictly for women and it provided $50,000 worth of protection for women who were struck with a few very specific forms of cancer. is it discriminatory to market an insurance product to me (a man) that only applies to women?

... it did strike me as being discriminatory when i looked at it. shouldn't the bank sell insurance that all their clients can purchase and not just some of them?

If your name is Harold or Bill....maybe....but most likely not.

Dude.....do you have one of those names like Kelly or Tracy or Terry or
whatever.....where at glance some bank employee might have thought
it could have also have been a womans name?

Maybe it wasn't descrimination in marketing an isurance product to you
(a man) that only applies to a woman. Maybe they thought you had a
vigina.

 

[Kreskin]

Wasn't even close.

It doesn't always work out that way but great you got a good deal.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

It doesn't always work out that way...

No it doesn't, and some banks are better than others. TD seems a lot nicer to me than RBC, for instance, but that might just be a matter of local management. That's why I shopped around for the mortgage, and the best terms were at the local credit union, no contest. But credit unions in Saskatchewan are a little different than they are anywhere else, many years of CCF and NDP administrations have generated laws that encourage and support them.