Equality between men and women has been a fundamental right and a common value for the European Union for decades and last week the European Court of Justice made one of its most significant judgements in years.

This latest decision will affect how car insurance, life insurance, health insurance and pensions are to be priced moving forward. To be exact this decision will come into force on December 21, 2012. The ruling states that insurance can no longer be priced on gender and came as a response to questions posed by Test Achats, a Belgian consumer interest group.

An EU gender directive came into force on December 21 2004 with the purpose of “implementing the principle of equal treatment between men and women in the access to and supply of goods and services” and allowed member states three years to put this in place.

Contained within this directive there was a clause that allowed insurers to offer men and women different prices for the same products. This new ECJ ruling completely reverses this clause.

The ECJ says: “Taking the gender of the insured individual into account as a risk factor in insurance contracts constitutes discrimination.”

Currently, women pay less for life assurance and car insurance but more for income protection cover and receive a lower rate when purchasing an annuity on the basis that they outlive their male counterparts and on the risk they pose in these cases.

Gender based pricing helps to give a more accurate insurance price. So at the moment, it really is a case of you win some you lose some when it comes to insurance.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) estimates that women aged under 25 could see a 25 per cent increase in car insurance premiums when the ruling comes into force, but men are expected to see a fall of just 10 per cent.

The move certainly does not get the approval of the majority of women, in a period of time where women earn on average 17.8 per cent less than men for every hour worked.

In a recent survey, 78 per cent of women say that they are unhappy with the recent ruling and 74 per cent of males are now in favour as car insurance premiums are to be potentially reduced for them.

The ABI also estimates that men approaching retirement could see an 8 per cent reduction in annuity rates, while women are expected to see only a 6 per cent rise.