Sainsbury’s Bank publishes their Car Insurance Index every year, taking a snapshot of UK car insurance premiums and tracks trends in the motor insurance industry. According to their report released in early September, the cost of insuring your vehicle rose an average of 4.2% since June 2006. In cash terms, most motorists are paying about 19.80 more to insure their cars this year than last year.
While car insurance premiums are definitely on the rise, those rises don’t affect everyone equally. Your gender and age have a big effect on just how much your car insurance has risen and is likely to rise. According to the figures quoted by Sainsbury’s, car insurance for men has risen faster than car insurance for women. Between June 2006 and July 2007, the average car insurance premium for men rose 5.2% to 518.46 as opposed to 3.1% to 442.28 for women overall. Men are generally considered to be a higher risk because of their tendency to take greater risks, which is borne out by the statistics which show more accidents per capita among men than among women in every age range.
Age is another big factor in the amount of insurance premiums that you pay, and...