Gender, like age or smoking, is used by financial services companies to predict risk profiles and set the price of premiums.

For instance, we know that women visit their doctors more frequently and, of course, they have babies. Some health-insurance providers therefore charge women more for their medical policies. Back in 2008, the National Women's Law Centre in the US published a report on health-insurance companies that found that, in that country, the average 25-year-old woman could thus pay almost 45 percent more for her health plan than her male counterpart did.

On the other hand, the smart companies are moving in the opposite direction. Consider that five out of the 10 key risk factors that contribute to stroke ? high blood pressure, smoking, abdominal obesity, poor diet and lack of physical exercise ? account for more than 80 percent of the worldwide risk of stroke. Then factor in that women smoke less than men, generally have a better understanding of nutrition and deal with stress better, and you would begin to understand why smart insurance companies consider women a lower risk than men, and reflect that in the premiums.

Young males are dreadful drivers

Or take motor car insurance. What's the difference between a 60-something male car driver and a 60-something female car driver? Zero. They have an equal chance of dying in a car accident. But let?s try that again, this time using younger people. What's the difference between a 23-year-old male car driver and a 23-year-old female car driver? About 535 percent. Yes, you?re reading that right; a 23-year-old male behind the wheel of a car has 535 times more chance of dying in a road accident than his female counterpart, according to the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC).

SIRC?s 2004 report "Sex differences in driving and insurance risk" explains it delicately: "The differences between the sexes in terms of their risk-proneness while driving can be explained, at least in part, using an evolutionary psychology perspective. Our 21st century skulls contain essentially 'stone-age' brains, and the brains of men and women are different in certain crucial respects."

The "stone-age brain" in men is basically a "legacy of his hunting, aggressive and risk-taking past [and] are still evident in the way in which he typically drives his car". It's not that all men are Neanderthals ? they'd be uninsurable if they were ? but males seem wired to do stupid things, and insurance companies recognise that. Look where most male drivers have accidents: on bends or when overtaking, or at night. And women? At road junctions ? probably linked to what SIRC calls "perceptual judgement errors" ? or when they're stationery and someone (usually a male) drives into them.

Backing up the male "stone-age brain" theory is a study by Magnus Johannesson, an economist at the Stockholm School of Economics, who found that despite being given extra testosterone, "women did not engage in risky financial behavior". The study took 200 post-menopausal women who received testosterone, oestrogen or a placebo for four weeks and had them play economic games to measure their propensity to take risks. The conclusion? Women are "a safer pair of hands on the stock-market trading floor than men".

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