Recalling that named drivers used to involve a hefty surcharge, I rang him chortling about how nice it would be if free lunches existed.
Yes, he replied, I know why you think there is a mistake, but there isn't. I read him the relevant figures. That's right, he replied.
You mean, I stammered tentatively, that if I want to add a woman to my insurance policy, my premium will go down rather than up?
Yes, he knew it sounded mad, but it had to do with the actuarial assessment of relative risk. Since women have fewer accidents, it is better to have a female driver on the policy.
Perhaps, he speculated, it is assumed that a man who can nominate a woman is less likely to be out at all hours of the night, "wandering around".
As an alternative analysis, he hypothesised that since women drivers are safer, a car with two nominated drivers, one female, is statistically less likely to be involved in an accident than one with just one driver who is male.
In an age which seeks at every other turn to deny differences between people, virtually the sole remaining sector in which differences are fully and frankly acknowledged is that centred on the empirical assessment of such differences. The Equal Status Act 2000 allows a specific exemption for insurance, on the basis that assessment of risk for insurance purposes is based on actuarial calculation.
So, here it is permissible not merely to acknowledge differences between individuals on the basis of gender, age or address, but to discriminate on any of these criteria without sanction - except that this is not called "discrimination" but "differentiation".
Insurance companies also differentiate on the basis of county. People from Kerry or Mayo, for example, are considered less risky than people who live in Longford or Laois.
The driving record of the individual is irrelevant to this calculation. A particular Longford driver may have a better record than a Mayo driver, but the latter will still get a better quote because of where he comes from, and better still if he has a woman in his life.
Now, it can plausibly be argued that since Longford people are clannish, chauvinistic and hostile to non-Longford people, Longford is deserving of whatever discrimination comes its way.
It was remarked in the last general election, for example, that, whereas voters in the Roscommon part of Longford-Roscommon voted for candidates on a constituency-wide basis, Longford voters tended to vote only for their own.
But even a pronounced sense of natural justice should not cause us to forget that discrimination is wrong.
Moreover, there is a question concerning how such loadings are calculated: are they based on the number of accidents occurring in a particular county or on those occurring anywhere involving people who give that county as their address?
This point is unclear, but either way we have here a new and hitherto undocumented "ism".
For what else can this be called but countyism? And it is worse than even this, for, whereas a male drive can reduce his premium by putting his wife or mistress on his policy (and she frequently will not even be required to produce a driving licence), a Longford man who does not know any women gains no benefit from nominating his male second cousin from Kerry, even though the latter has a lower risk factor than, say, a woman from Dublin.
Yes, explained the man in the Equality Authority, in what seemed a rather wearied manner, it is an issue that occasionally surfaces on their radar.
In fact, there are a number of cases involving insurance due before the Equality Tribunal later this year.
They do not discuss specific complaints, but there may well be issues arising that go beyond the exempted status of the insurance industry.
People who complain of less favourable treatment are required to prove a contravention of equality legislation not covered by legal exemptions.
We need, then, a 21-year-old Longford bachelor who is shunned by womenfolk to make a case that the excess premium he is required to pay over his swashbuckling Mayo compatriot represents a violation of his human rights.
Or perhaps a Laois homosexual arguing that, although he is the "female" half of a gay marriage, he and his partner must pay a penalty not imposed on the cute hetero Kerryman and Kerrymaid next door.
Now there's one for the equality lobby to get its teeth into.