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car insurance

Young women fare worst as gender neutral pricing drives up car insurance

On average, women under 25 saw an increase of 20 per cent with some reporting rises of up to 50 per cent while younger men reap the benefits of the new pricing system.

MOTOR INSURANCE PREMIUMS are up an average of 3.3 per cent since the introduction of gender neutral pricing with young women aged 17 to 24 losing out the most.

An industry analysis conducted by AA found that men in the same age bracket came out best with under 25 males seeing a fall in premiums of 26 per cent.

In total, there was an 18 per cent increase in premiums for women while men saw their premiums fall 9.8 per cent.

Conor Faughan, Director of Consumer Affairs at AA said the company is “not really surprised with the outcome.”

“We knew that young men would come out happy while young women would bear the brunt of the costs,” he said. “It is shocking to see just how much more women aged 17 to 24 are paying.”

While the average women under 25 saw an increase of around 20 per cent, AA said some women reported increases of 50 per cent.

Overall, 44 per cent of people surveyed said their insurance had increased. The majority of these were female, with 53 per cent of women saying their insurance had gone up.

Faughan commented:

Younger women are no doubt fuming at this substantial increase and it certainly feels unfair to them. Statistics have shown that women under the age of 25 are in fact safer drivers than men of the same age.

Just before the gender ruling came to force The AA asked motorists what they thought of it and only 29 per cent of women said they believed the ruling to be fair compared to 74 per cent of males.

Read: Women drivers see the biggest increase in motoring costs>

Read: Gender equalisation car insurance policy comes into effect today>

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