Vero Insurance has eschewed genders for its car insurance offerings, with underwritten policies no longer based on the genders of its drivers.

The insurer has sent out a note saying it will no longer capture a driver’s gender for car insurance, adding that it is no longer appropriate to ask customers for that kind of information.

“Gender is currently captured in a binary sense and doesn’t accurately reflect our customer base,” Vero said in a report from Stuff. “This means it’s no longer appropriate to rate against or to ask for this information from our customers.”

Vero has been planning for this development since 2021 but has said that it will not be moving quickly in order to avoid big swings in premiums for some policyholders.

“As a business, we had the option to try and rate or price a more diverse gender spectrum,” Vero executive business manager Sacha Cowlrick said in an update to its brokers.

An earlier report from 2021 revealed that Cowlrick said that male versus female binary distinction of gender was not a reflection of modern New Zealand, and that it was also not a reflection of the insurer’s customers’ gender spectrum.

A few months ago, the firm’s head of consumer, Jane Brewer, urged organizations to be more vigilant for additional risks faced by customers, including fraud and scams.

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