Photo: Chevrolet
Insurance companies in Canada charge higher premiums to men under 25 than they do to women of the same age. Add a couple of tickets or collisions on your record, and the premium goes even higher.
That’s the situation one man from Alberta, Canada found himself in when he decided to buy a brand new Chevrolet Cruze. He was 23 at the time, had a collision and a few tickets on his record, and was supposed to pay about $4,500 a year on insurance for the car.
He couldn’t afford that kind of money, he tells CBS.ca. So he asked how much he’d pay if he were a woman and was shocked to find that it was about $1,100 less.
That’s when he got the idea to legally change his gender. The insurance company couldn’t charge him as female because he obviously wasn’t. For that to happen, he’d have to provide a birth certificate and a driver’s license in which he identified as female.
Under Canadian legislation, you can apply for a legal gender change if you provide authorities with a note from your doctor stating that you identify as one gender or another – or none at all. That’s what “David” did.
“I have taken advantage of a loophole. It was pretty simple.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 he wrote me the letter I wanted,” “David” says.
For the obvious reasons, he won’t go public with his name.
He sent the letter to the authorities and in almost no time, he got a brand new birth certificate in the mail. Legally, David is a woman now – and he pays insurance on his car as any other woman would.
“I was quite shocked, but I was also relieved. I felt like I beat the system. I felt like I won,” he boasts. “I'm a man, 100 per cent. Legally, I'm a woman. I did it for cheaper car insurance. I didn't do it to point out how easy it is to change genders. I didn't do it to criticize or ridicule transgender or LGBT rights.”
Though “David” feels like he beat the system, he knows that what he did is also illegal and falls under fraud. He says he did it to get back at insurance companies.
He couldn’t afford that kind of money, he tells CBS.ca. So he asked how much he’d pay if he were a woman and was shocked to find that it was about $1,100 less.
That’s when he got the idea to legally change his gender. The insurance company couldn’t charge him as female because he obviously wasn’t. For that to happen, he’d have to provide a birth certificate and a driver’s license in which he identified as female.
Under Canadian legislation, you can apply for a legal gender change if you provide authorities with a note from your doctor stating that you identify as one gender or another – or none at all. That’s what “David” did.
“I have taken advantage of a loophole. It was pretty simple.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 he wrote me the letter I wanted,” “David” says.
For the obvious reasons, he won’t go public with his name.
He sent the letter to the authorities and in almost no time, he got a brand new birth certificate in the mail. Legally, David is a woman now – and he pays insurance on his car as any other woman would.
“I was quite shocked, but I was also relieved. I felt like I beat the system. I felt like I won,” he boasts. “I'm a man, 100 per cent. Legally, I'm a woman. I did it for cheaper car insurance. I didn't do it to point out how easy it is to change genders. I didn't do it to criticize or ridicule transgender or LGBT rights.”
Though “David” feels like he beat the system, he knows that what he did is also illegal and falls under fraud. He says he did it to get back at insurance companies.
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