For Women Car Insurance Need Not Be Quite Such a Financial Nightmare

There is a certain debate that is almost guaranteed to raise temperatures in our modern world, particularly where men are concerned.

It’s actually quite a meaningless one because it depends to a large degree on how you measure the evidence, but if you listen to the insurance companies, you’ll find that they have plenty of it and that it indicates that women, in least one aspect of the debate win hands down.

Who are the better drivers, men or women?

This really boils down to a judgement call for the insurance companies, who have been diligently compiling and comparing data for many years and the simple fact is that women have fewer accidents than men and that those they do have are far less serious.

Which simply means that for women car insurance is logically going to be cheaper than it is for men of similar age and driving experience.

The arguments abound about how men generally cover more mileage and hence are exposed to more risk, and that may well be true but there is no escaping the fact that insurance companies do not calculate the cost of a policy and the extent of its cover in the light of pro-rata risk, nor do they (generally) concern themselves with relative usage. They provide carefully calculated quotes based on the intelligent calculation of odds, pure and simple.

Which is why for women car insurance companies have traditionally demonstrated a slight soft spot; one that while not necessarily making a new policy ridiculously cheap has tended to result in significantly lower quotes, particularly if you compare company with company.

It is interesting to note however that this fact has not proved popular on all fronts.

We live in a world in which many legal and moral arguments, rather than being debated and settled on the basis of established fact and legal merit, have instead been subsumed to the needs of social politics. In this case, the argument concerning the cost of insurance cover has become gender specific.
It runs like this.

Why is it that when it comes to women car insurance is automatically subject to a discount to which men are not entitled?

Well, the insurance companies can and did provide facts and statistics placing the answer to this beyond mathematical doubt, but in July 2011 the European Court of Justice upheld a challenge to this underlying principle and declared the practice to be discriminatory. The precise results of this are yet to manifest themselves in the marketplace but it is certain that for women car insurance is set to rise.

Landmark case or not, it is not illegal for an insurance company to specialise in offering bespoke cover to female drivers and savings are still to be made with this type of policy. Online car insurance comparison sites are the way to go to find these specialist companies, and remember that market incentive dictates that there will always be cheap quotes to be had in recognition of a favourable driving history.