Men are paying on average $358 more annually on car insurance than women with the same profiles, said a study from Insurance.com that was released earlier this week.
In a follow up piece written for Businessweek, Karen Aho writes, “A 25-year-old male driver in, for example, Oakland, Calif., with no tickets or accidents, will pay up to $358 more for auto insurance than a woman with the same profile.”
The reason for this discrepancy, however, is not because men get in more accidents than women. Instead, the insurance rates are more impacted by the type of accidents that men and women get in.
According to the report, women are much more likely to be involved in small collision accidents and fender benders.
Men, on the other hand, are more likely to speed, drive aggressively, and drive while under the influence of alcohol and drugs. These facts help lead to a whopping 71% of automotive deaths being caused by males. These, of course, are much more costly in nature: medical bills, lawyers, etc.
“That’s why the auto insurer is looking at gender,” says Michael Barry of the Insurance Information Institute in his interview with Businessweek.
However, there are indications that all of these numbers are slowly starting to shift. Since 1975, fatal male accident numbers have decreased by 31%, while women’s have only decreased by 12%.
The study also indicates that there are many other factors that blur the scope of the numbers, for example, the fact that men spend much more time driving than women do.
Adding to this shape shifting reality is the role that technology will play in the upcoming years. Between autonomous cars and new safety features, it’s hard to determine exactly what impact that will have on the driving scene. Either way, men pull out them checkbooks because like it or not you’ve got some big bills to pay.
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