Hands up, I work in car insurance pricing.
I feel there whilst there is a strong case that insurers should be able to use any legitimate rating factor available to arrive at the most appropriate price for any particular risk (including gender) it is fair to say that most people would find the idea of rating on skin colour abhorrant regardless of how robust a statistical case could be made, proving that issues like this cannot be separated from politics.
For me, rating on skin colour, sexual orientation or nationality goes too far because the underlying causes used to explain the discrepancy would be spurious in the extreme and rightly wide open to accusations of racism etc. However for me rating on age, experience and gender should be allowed as the rationale is easy to articulate – just watch the discovery channel or reference your own experience.
Incidentally, one thing that is missing from the press coverage is that in general terms men might actually cheaper than females in the middle ages, so whilst the increases for young women make the headlines it may not be quite the full story, although clearly this would vary.
I do feel I should make the point that whilst it’s easy to demonise the industry as taking any excuse to 'screw' more money out of the helpless consumer, the insurance industry have lost money on private motor insurance for a number of years now, in some cases to an eyewatering extent, this is easy to see from any of the publically available industry analyses and/or company results.
The truth is the increases seen by most motorists in recent years has nothing whatsoever to do with corporate greed, we do after all operate in one of the most perfectly competitive and transparent markets for any good or service available thanks to the advent of price comparison websites.
If you're looking for someone to blame try personal injury lawyers, loosely regulated claims management firms, price comparison sites, cash for crash scams and good old fashioned fraudulent claimants, especially exaggeration fraud. I mean, how many of us know someone who got more than they deep down thought they deserved for "whiplash" or "soft tissue injury to lower back"?