Can a female driver halve the car insurance of their male partner?

According to research from Confused.com women are a gender of spenders but despite these spending habits women who drive regularly could save their male partners big savings on their car insurance.

Women can almost halve the car insurance bill for a man by simply being added to their insurance policy, if they are a regular driver. The average annual cost of comprehensive cover for a male driver, if he is the only driver insured on the car, is £954 according to Confused.com’s latest car insurance price index. However, by adding a spouse it could cause the premium to fall to just £452, creating a potential saving of £502. It appears that female partners can lower a car insurance premium because women are usually seen to be statistically "less risky" by insurance companies than men.

This saving is expected to end when the EU’s Gender Directive ruling comes in to force from December 21st this year, as insurance providers will no longer be exempt from a wider EU principle covering gender equality.

This means insurers will no longer be allowed to take gender into account when calculating car insurance premiums but until then, insurers can continue to use gender as a rating factor, charging men and women different prices.

Will Thomas, car insurance expert at Confused.com, says “before the gender directive comes into force, adding a spouse or partner is a great way of lowering your premium and spreading the risk in the insurer’s eyes. However there may be some instances where adding a female driver may make your policy more expensive. Use your common sense here, if the driver is young and inexperienced or has driving convictions and a claims record then this is likely to make your policy more expensive.”

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