Do companies specialising in car insurance for women offer a better deal?
If there's a TV advertising jingle that has driven me mad over the last few months, it's the one for Sheilas' Wheels, the car insurance firm targeting women drivers. It might seem as if the company has been around for years, so ubiquitous is the jingle but in fact, it's only just celebrated its first birthday.
Whether you believe it or not, it's claimed that women are statistically better drivers than men. That's not to say we don't have as many accidents as men, it's just ours don't tend to cause as much damage as those involving male drivers because we don't drive as fast! Hence the existence of car insurance companies exclusively for women. But do they really offer cheaper premiums?
It would appear, as with any car insurer, that quotes vary widely. For me, Shelia's Wheels came in at £227.69, nearly £115 cheaper than that other well-known insurance company for women drivers, Diamond, who quoted £342.30! Other competitors came up with £321.68 (GirlMotor) and £274.49 (LadyInsure) - both of whom, annoyingly, phoned me half an hour after I got their online quotes to chase me up!
Apart from Sheilas' Wheels, the quotes were all more expensive than the cheapest non-gender specific company quote found by the comparison website, confused.com which came up with £257.70 with Norwich Union.
So, it would appear that as with any insurance quote it pays to shop around, even among insurers offering a specialty service.
Interestingly, while women may be safer drivers, they're beginning to catch up with the chaps when it comes to driving convictions. According to an analysis of Confused.com's database of 5.5 million registered users, some 16.8% of men currently have convictions, compared to 9.8% of women, But the gap between the sexes is narrowing with the number of female drivers with points on their licence more than doubling just 4.8% three years ago.
As a result car insurance premiums are higher, adding almost £100 to the cost of the average policy for just one conviction.
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