By Max Augros
A 24-year-old man in Alberta, Canada changed the gender listed on his birth certificate from ‘male’ to ‘female’ in order to save nearly $1,100 on his car insurance. Now that he is, legally, a woman, his insurer’s initial rate sank from $4,500 a year to around $3,400 – a $1,092 difference savings of $91 per month.
The man, identified by the pseudonym “David” by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), said he had merely “taken advantage of a loophole.” The CBC reported that a collision and a couple of tickets on his record increased David’s cost to insure his Chevrolet Cruze. “I was pretty angry about that. And I didn’t feel like getting screwed over any more,” David told CBC.
In Canada and the U.S., men under the age of 25 are often made to pay significantly more for car insurance than women, since national statistics show this demographic has a higher speeding and accident rate. David discovered he could lower the cost of his insurance by changing his gender identity on his birth certificate.
“It was pretty simple,” he said. “I just basically asked for it and told them that I identify as a woman, or I’d like to identify as a woman, and [the doctor] wrote me the letter I wanted.”
The Albertan provincial government received his doctor’s note and changed the gender on his birth certificate to reflect his preferred legal identity.
“I felt like I beat the system. I felt like I won,” David said. “I’m a man, 100 per cent. Legally, I’m a woman. I did it for cheaper car insurance.”
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