You wrote, “Assessing risk by category is really utter nonsense. ” I don’t think you can assess an individual like you suggest. Buster Martin died this month aged over 100 (his exact age is disputed). He smoked from the age of 7 to the day he died – he was fit up to the very end. He was known as the UK’s oldest employee. He was clearly much fitter than most (every?) non-smoker, yet he would have been penalised for being a smoker by the insurance industry – discriminated against, if you like.

If women have fewer accidents than men then let them have lower premiums. What is the problem with that?

The ECJ has proved that “equality” and fairness are totally different, although this has been obvious to a lot of us for some time now as we read the almost daily news stories of fairness and justice being dispensed with because of this weird devotion to “equality”.

Men and women are NOT equal. Women are safer drivers. Men are stronger. Women bear children. Men are natural providers. Women are natural nurturers.

The sooner politicians realise that men and women are complementary, not equal, we can maybe move into more enlightened times again; happier days.

We are equal in the eyes of God and deserve equal treatment in law, but not every human being is equal in talents and abilities and “equality” legislation is doing a lot of damage because it can fail to recognise this and certain freedoms become sacrificed and people can feel they have been relieved of their responsibilities.

I’m afraid the pan-European organisations no longer know what justice is in their rush to kill freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, individuality, freedom of religion, national sovereignty and nationhood.

As Dave Collins writes, “Insurance is ABOUT discrimination.”

Okay, Ms Honeyball, let’s play it your way. As a 47 year-old man, I should be able to pay the same premiums for life insurance/assurance as an 18 year-old woman. A smoker should pay no extra. Medicals should not be required, because they are bound to discriminate against those who are unwell.

And as for paying different house insurance premiums depending on where you live, why it’s a postcode lottery!

The state of our economy is hardly surprising considering the red tape and other interference from all sorts of elected and unelected busybodies.

No offence, but the sooner we get out of the EU and you have to try and get a job in the real world the better.

There are exceptions to gender discrimination legislation – personal insurance ought to be one. Indeed it is rather disturbing that the ECJ is trying to apply human rights and equalities principles to it at all.

At first the prospect of completely individualised car insurance assessments seemed ridiculous to me. The reckless teenage male driver turning up for an interview at the insurance office in his Dad’s suit and armed with testimonials from his school teachers and the local vicar. On reflection though, perhaps something of this kind might be a solution, the sums of money are so great that perhaps all the bother might be worth it.

I can’t really see the logic of saying that the ECJ had done its job admirably well but that the results would be unfair. It reminds me of when people say ‘it’s all very well in theory but it does not work in practice’. Whenever I hear this I always think that if it does not work in practice the theory must be flawed.
A similar situation occurred with the corps de ballet at the Opera de Paris. The retirement ages for the dancers were (I think) 45 for the men and 40 for the women. The decision was based not just on physical reasons but also on the fact that the men did not have the strain of dancing on points like the women. Thanks to our European masters, this was changed and the retirement was harmonised. The women had to keep dancing well after they were ready to hang up their dancing shoes and the men had to retire when they still had some spring in their step.

I suppose the EU might get around to addressing this problem in time with some top-down, ill considered bit of regulation. They will probably ban dancing on points, make the men dance on points, make all the dancers dance on points with one foot and not the other or more likely they will lead us to such financial catastrophe that all ballet dancers will be hobbling around the stage in their late nineties.