Elderly women suffer most with car insurance costs

According to a recent report the demographic group that suffers most when it comes to the cost of car insurance is elderly women. Data from the insurance industry, which was recently released, has shown that from an insurance point of view elderly women are considered more dangerous behind the wheel than young men, and the higher risk is reflected in the cost of premiums charged to older female drivers.

Figures have suggested that after retirement elderly women who continue to drive could face premiums that are more than double the standard amount because of the risk based calculations that insurance companies use. Figures from the AA Insurance showed that for a woman driver who was aged fifty five and who was driving a Renault Clio the average cost of cover would be £186. However, the cost for a woman aged eighty five would be around £375.

Men aged twenty five and under are usually classed as the highest risk to insurance companies, but the figures have shown that elderly female drivers are likely to pay even more than drivers in this group. Data has shown that in their younger years women tend to pay less for their insurance premiums than men because they are a lower risk to insurance companies based on statistics. However, this changes in later life.

The data shows that once women reach their fifties statistically they tend to be responsible for a greater number of claims, and this means that in later life they could end up paying 50 percent more than men even though they may have been paying far less in their younger years. The AA states that in 2004 the point at which women started to pay more for their insurance than men was sixty years of age, but this has now dropped to fifty years of age.

Tags: finance, insurance premiums, insurance point of view elderly women, Insurance, car insurance