Do women get lower car insurance rates?

Women may get the brunt of jokes from their husbands about how bad their driving is, but do insurance companies actually give lower rates to women because they are better drivers?

If you compare male and female drivers in the same age groups, female drivers tend to have fewer accidents and traffic violations as compared to their male counterparts. Men tend to exhibit riskier driving habits such as being more aggressive, driving faster, and getting behind the wheel while intoxicated. These tendancies are the difference between males and females, as males tend to vent their anger more directly than women, as well as show an increased disregard for traffic laws.

The extent to which insurance companies give women drivers better rates is left up to the actuaries who establish car insurance rates. In the majority of cases with a male and female of identical driving record, age, marital status, credit rating and vehicle, the female will pay lower car insurance rates due to her lower risk of causing a claim situation for her insurance company. She may in fact cost much more money for the car insurance company than her male counterpart, but on average, actuarial rates show that she will be of less risk. If, during the policy period, she is responsible for an at-fault accident or a moving violation, then the rates she pays will trend upward as compared to male driver rates with no accidents or violations.

I have known some really bad women drivers and some really good men drivers. Is it fair to make assumptions based on the sex of the driver when setting car insurance rates? Insurance companies keep track of everything. Any small piece of statistical data that can present a more accurate risk of loss will be analyzed extensively by their actuaries. The closer they can predict the chance of a single, 27-year-old caucasian male with 1 speeding ticket, no at-fault accidents, a 685 credit score and no bankruptcies having an accident, the more accurate their rates will be. There used to be a handful of rates such as preferred or standard, but now insurance companies use such complicated matrix-based rate calculations that there may be literally thousands of different levels of rating for one company.

So do women get lower car insurance rates than men? You can thank your friendly actuary for giving women a break on their car insurance. That is, until you get a speeding ticket.