Mack A. Damia wrote:
> (Men drive more, too)
>
> Rating systems and rate factors vary from insurance company to
> insurance company. Auto insurance premiums are determined by using
> many factors, gender generally being one of them.
>
> With all factors being equal, a female between the ages of 18 and 25
> will generally pay less then her male counterpart. This is because
> generally speaking younger women have fewer accidents and moving
> violations than males in the same age group. Statistics show that
> males typically are more aggressive drivers and thus with some
> insurance companies their risk factor is higher so a male driver's car
> insurance rates are higher than that of a female.
>
> Some of the other reasons that this is the case is because males on
> average drive more then females. And if you drive more then your odds
> of being in an accident increase. Also, young men are more often risk
> takers behind the wheel. This often results in moving violation
> tickets. Both of those factors result in higher premiums.
>
> Male under the age of 25 typically have the highest premiums. Females
> normally cost a bit less to insure because of statistics showing they
> are not as aggressive behind the wheel.
>
> So gender does affect your rates, because statistically females
> drivers have less incidents than males their rates are in general
> lower. Of course if a female has a bad driving record and her male
> counterpart has a good, clean record then the female's rates would
> normally be higher due to her record.

FWIW I used to work for our provinces Ministry of Transportation and
have seen the statistics for accident rates per distance driven for
male and female drivers. It is an eye opener. In the 16-19 age group,
males have roughly 25% more crashes per distance driven than females. In
the 20-24 group, they are equal and the females in the 25-29 age group
have a slightly lower crash rate. From that age on, the male rates are
lower than females. The males show a downward trend while the female
rate starts to increase gradually. After age 70, the males rates start
to increase. Meanwhile, the female rate start are as bad at age 70 as
the men are at 80, and the 80 year old women are considerably worse than
new drivers.

While the accident rates for young males are slightly higher than
females, males tend to drive more. At least, at the time those stats
they did. Things seem a lot different these days. There seems to be
more young women at the wheel, and many of them have the same bad
driving habits that young men used to have. I used to see all sorts of
accidents involving young men, but these days the drivers involved seem
to be young women and old people.



Back in the 1990s, Ontario was considering graduated licencing for new
drivers and there was a lot of lobbying done by the Insurance Bureau of
Canada (ISBC). They were running all sorts of ads about how graduated
licencing in other countries had reduced accident rates in young
drivers. The government bought their argument and brought in graduated
licencing. When it was enacted, the premier made an announcement hoping
that the insurance companies would reduce their rates for young drivers.
The ISBC didn't go for that. They said that there was no evidence of
graduated licencing reducing accident rates. The *******s.