Press releases

92% of motorist in a recent survey voted no to the European Commission's plans to abolish sex discrimination in car insurance.

Diamond, a direct insurer specialising in car insurance for women, carried out the survey to find out motorists' opinions on the controversial EU proposals to remove gender as a factor in calculating car insurance.

Diamond is concerned that ruling out the use of statistical evidence on the differences between men and women's driving records, will mean women paying for men's more reckless driving.

92% of women and 65% of men surveyed, strongly agreed that the use of gender should remain a factor when determining car insurance premiums.

Sian Lewis, managing director at Diamond said, "Our survey results show motorists think the current system of calculating premiums is fair and gender should continue as a factor. Introducing this law will not create equality, instead women will end up paying for men's more expensive claims costs."

Diamond's premiums currently reflect the fact that women have a different driving pattern to men. In insurance terms women, particularly young women, are better drivers than men because they have fewer expensive accidents. This is reflected in the lower premiums which women pay.

Table 1 is based on an analysis of the past two years driving history of two thirds of a million motorists, and shows the substantial difference in average claims costs.

Table 1:

UK insurers set premiums based on a number of factors including, age, type of car driven, and postcode areas as well as gender.

Table 2: Shows the average premium cost for an 18 year old male and female, driving a Vauxhall Astra 1.6 LS 2000, with a £100 policy excess, working as a bank clerk, living in postcode area RG14 6PR. (male quote provided by Admiral Insurance, female quote by Diamond.)

Table 2:

Diamond's survey results show that with 92% of the vote, UK motorists consider gender to be the most important risk factor when calculating premiums, along with the type of car driven.