No I'm not an underwriter, just a member of the public.

The logic is simple, underwriters single out most things that they deem to be a risk to safe driving. If an underwriter deems that having children in the car that can be noisy, kick the back of the drivers chair, throw themselves around the back fighting, be sick or any other reason cause a distraction that could lead to an accident, it is within their rights to add a premium to that. If you have points on your licence then you have to pay a greater premium. I would imagine that (although someone might correct me on this) if you ran a quote through as a healthy driver, then put in exactly the same details but delcared a medical condition then the quote would be different. I know of people who have been unable to drive because they have epilepsy - simply screaming "discrimination" at this point would be madness - an eplileptic fit could lead to a serious accident including death and as such the danger would need to be accounted for.

My point though was that there is plenty of choice in the market out there - if someone isnt happy with having their premium loaded because they have children then the simplest thing is to move on and find another company, not scream DISCRIMINATION as loudly as possible in the hope that the situation will change.

As far as being an unscrupulous underwriter is concerned Daryl, you should be greatfull that there are people out there who watch out for others by restricting certain high-risk groups! It would be awful if you suffered an injury, or indeed lost your life or that of someone close to you due to a collision with a high risk driver - I'm sure you'd be the first to question how that driver managed to get insurance (assuming you were still alive to do so of course).

Its not up to you or I to decide what is and isnt a high risk driver group, that's why we have underwriters. Remember that driving is not a right, its a privilege!!