IF YOU'RE IN the market for car insurance you might want to sign up for a new email address before looking for a quote.
That's because some insurers use your email provider as a proxy for your likelihood of making a claim. A Hotmail address apparently marks you down as a boy or girl racer, in comparison with Gmail users who, insurers seem to believe, live life in the slow lane.
The findings come from an investigation by The Sun. Reporters applied for insurance quotes on price comparison sites using profiles that were identical apart from the email address. One of the UK's largest motor insures, Admiral, was singled out for discriminating in terms of price.
"We found that on comparison website GoCompare, Admiral charged a Hotmail driver £467.04 and a Gmail one £435.68 — £31.36 less," the reporters said.
Admiral admitted that it does use email domains as one variable in its risk estimation algorithm saying: "Certain domain names are associated with more accidents than others."
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