As we have seen on another page (see here) younger drivers in female-biased occupations may be getting much cheaper car insurance than those im more male-dominated ones. This means that the average young women may still be getting a better deal than the average young male, despite the efforts of the EU to ignore logic and make males and females pay the same. However, has does this work out for other age groups? Do all women seem to get cheaper cover, or just the young ones? We decided to find out.

We got ten female motorists to compare quotes, using a popular price comparison site, for their next car insurance renewal. They did this several times, putting in exactly the same criteria each time except (a) they gave their occupation as nurse and their age as 21, 41 and 51, recording the lowest quote each time; and then they repeated the exercise, only now they gave their occupation as builder. The lowest quotes they got are in the tables below - please bear in mind that they all have different cars, postcodes, driving experience etc which is why the quotes differ so much from one person to the other. This doesn't matter since what we are interested in is how the change in ages and jobs affects each person.

It seems clear from these results that the difference in premiums between a female-majority job like nursing, and a male-majority job like building, is very considerable indeed for a 21 year old, still a factor for drivers over the age of 41, but at 51 the difference practically disappeared; in fact in half the cases there was no difference at all, and in one case the lowest quote for a 51 year old nurse was actually higher than the one for a builder. It has long been accepted that for younger drivers, the males make far more claims than females, but this declines with age until, by the age of 50, there is little difference in the accident rates of both sexes. This is why insurers traditionally gave lower premiums to young females than those they gave to males, which the European Court, in their wisdom, outlawed. Are insurers now using occupations, rather than sex, to achieve the same end? This would probably comply with the letter, put perhaps not the spirit, of the EU Gender Directive.