Female Car Insurance Could Rise By 25% From December

Female Car Insurance To Rise!

The new EU ruling which bans insurers from rating car insurance on gender comes in to effect as from 21st December. Currently female drivers get a much cheaper rate than male drivers due to the cost of their claims being much lower, but the ruling will now stop insurance company's from 'descriminating' drivers and could potentially increase female car insurance policy's by 25%. We should also see male car insurance policy's reduce but whether we will or not, we will have to wait and see!!

A Uswitch.com survey also revealed that between 15-25% of female drivers will be forced to sell or take their cars off the road due to the increased running costs.

Insurance company's have fought to stop this ruling from happening and stats showed that females claim costs were much less than their male counterparts, but eventually failed to overrule the courts decision.

Can Women Do Anything To Save Money?
The only real thing women can do is if their car insurance comes due for renewal just after 21st December is to see if it would be cheaper to cancel their policy and restart a brand new policy before the ruling comes in to force therefor potentially benefiting for 1 more year. Only thing with this is you could be charged more than the savings to cancel the policy 'mid-term', you could also lose out on built up No Claims Bonus unless you already have 9+ years built up.

There are other things you can generally review at renewal time which may help keep the premiums as low as possible including a lower mileage limit (check your last MOT's and see what mileage you have done), if you are married, but your spouse isn't on your policy, add them for a discount. On your own home? you can get a discount for this. No longer use the car to commute to work? many company's allow a discount to exclude commuting cover. If you always garage the car make sure the insurers are aware of this for more discounts!
You can reduce the premium by requesting a larger excess (what you pay towards any vehicle damage), but check the savings, we usually recommend keeping the excess as low as possible as the savings you make will be very little compare to what you will have to pay out in event of an accident.

Please speak to your insurance broker and get advice if you feel you are going to suffer and they should be able to give you the best advice on keeping your car insurance premiums low!!!!!

Gary Hodgson CeRGI
GJT Hodgson Insurance Services