Gender can cost you in individual health insurance

One item to note is that the California Department of Insurance said there are no regulations in place to prevent this, and Blue Shield is perhaps not the only carrier with gender specific costs. It’s all about cracking the numbers is appears, but what will be the next step? We have all the statistics today to evaluate, so could this get further defined on perhaps race, religion, or other determining factors as they are studied? Insurance as it stands today is complicated enough and unless changes of some type are initiated somewhere down the line, the queries and parameters will just continue to grow…BD

When it comes to health insurance, Valencia resident Tova Hack's first problem is that she works part time and thus needs an individual policy for medical coverage because her employer doesn't offer one. Her second problem is that she's a woman. Hack, 22, a grad student at Cal State Northridge, is insured by Blue Shield of California. She just found out that the cost of her bare-bones, high-deductible insurance plan is going up 20%, to $119 a month from $99.

"It's all about the statistics," Epstein said.
It's not about pregnancy, though. Hack's policy doesn't even cover pregnancy and maternity care.

By age 20, women are paying $119 monthly, while men are charged $110.
When they turn 35, women are paying $174 a month compared with the $162 men are paying. By age 45, women are up to $271 a month, while men pay $25 less, or $246.

Gender can cost you in individual health insurance - Los Angeles Times