Discrimination in financial services

Under the Equal Status Act 1990 – Life Insurance Companies, (like any other financial services provider) can not generally discriminate – like charging higher premiums, changing benefits, have more stringent underwriting terms between different policy holders on any of the following grounds;

a:Gender (after December 21st, 2012) b:Marital status c:Family status d:Sexual orientation e:Religious belief f:Age g:Disability h:Nationality i:Membership of the travelling community.

However life companies can discriminate in terms of setting premiums or benefits, underwriting terms, etc. on any of the above grounds (other than gender with effect from 21st December 2012), where the discrimination involved is based on:

1. Actuarial or statistical data obtained from a reliable source e.g. mortality tables, 2.    Other  relevant underwriting or commercial    factors, and (3) 3.    Discrimination is reasonable having regard to the data or other relevant factors. So life companies can charge different premiums by age (older lives are charged higher premiums for the same benefits than younger lives) on the basis that they have reliable statistical information. Data showing that the risk of a life assurance or serious illness claim varies …

Read More →

Beware of Expert Opinion from Promoters.

Lately we have been witnessing a resurfacing of property promoters in the press after a long period of silence. We want to reassert our advice that people should do their own homework before embarking on a large asset purchase be it property or otherwise.

How can you tell if it makes sense to buy a property? Our suggestion, as a financial firm, is that you talk to a financial adviser, you determine your own circumstances, you look at your own unique situation, and that you don’t base your opinion on what you hear on the radio or TV from people in the property business. The people who are restarting to champion property now are doing so under the banner that ‘it is cheap to buy’, part of the ‘cheap’ is due to exceptionally low interest rates, which invariably will go up some day.

That is not to say ‘don’t buy property‘, far from it, what we are trying to tell people is ‘make prudent decisions’, don’t buy any asset you can’t afford …

Read More →

Understanding Deposit & Lending Margin relationships

Part of the way you can get a view of a lenders margins is by looking at the deposit margins they offer because deposit margins usually reflect – at least to some degree – lending margins. This is because there are two sides to a balance sheet with any bank, on one hand you have deposits which you attract in order to fund lending so if you have low deposit margins that is probably indicative of having low lending margins (although not always!), however, if you have higher deposit margins it is almost certain that you have high lending margins.

NIB released their results today so we’ll take them as an example as well as Anglo Irish Bank to demonstrate the way that you can read into certain elements of how a bank is run from the outside and also on the type of business they engage in.

For a start you’ll need to know that average margin on a mortgage with many banks is less than 1% and that is from …

Read More →

Understanding Deposit & Lending Margin relationships

Part of the way you can get a view of a lenders margins is by looking at the deposit margins they offer because deposit margins usually reflect – at least to some degree – lending margins. This is because there are two sides to a balance sheet with any bank, on one hand you have deposits which you attract in order to fund lending so if you have low deposit margins that is probably indicative of having low lending margins (although not always!), however, if you have higher deposit margins it is almost certain that you have high lending margins.

NIB released their results today so we’ll take them as an example as well as Anglo Irish Bank to demonstrate the way that you can read into certain elements of how a bank is run from the outside and also on the type of business they engage in.

For a start you’ll need to know that average margin on a mortgage with many banks is less than 1% and that is from …

Read More →