New Zealand insurer Vero will offer gender-neutral car insurance products, saying it will be more inclusive, while insight into risk drivers can be gleaned from the make and model of their car rather than gender. 

Vero products in New Zealand are broker-distributed.   

The insurer flagged the change for pricing and underwriting for personal products in late 2021 and has been working with Amplify, the insurer’s employee resource group for LGBTIQ+ employees and allies, to arrive at the best approach. 

It looked at creating a spectrum to rate or price a more diverse gender spectrum but decided to remove gender from all underwriting. 

One roadblock is that historically claims data supported the insurance market’s approach to ‘male’ and ‘female’ customers having different risks.   

“Typically, the industry has rated young males' higher risk than young females.  However, through research we found using other factors such as vehicle make and model were more useful than the driver’s gender,” Vero’s Executive General Manager Consumer Jane Brewer said. 

Vero has sought to gradually introduce the change to ensure that when gender is removed as a factor it would not result in sudden premium changes that customers were not prepared for.  

Brokers will no longer be shown questions related to driver gender when insuring a new policy, and notices referencing gender have been removed.