Approximately 200,000 women motorists could face increases of €300.
Up to 200,000 female drivers in Ireland have discovered that they could be paying annual auto insurance premiums that are €300 more than the current rates.
In fact, these rate hikes have already been set into place by some insurers in the country.
Auto insurance companies have already begun the premiums increases for women in anticipation of the new European Union regulations that ban gender discrimination that will officially be implemented in December 2012. The increases are anywhere from 10 percent to 45 percent for wo
men motorists between the ages of 17 and 30 years old. The increases for women older than 30 will not be as high as those in the younger age bracket.
These auto insurance trends are based on a comparison of rates among 16 of the country’s top insurers.
At the moment, there are approximately 200,000 licensed women in the country who are under the age of 30 who will be affected by the largest auto insurance price increases. Women in that age group have traditionally had premiums that were notably less than their male counterparts because they have a lower risk associated with them as motorists.
However, as of December 2012, a ruling will go into place across the European Union that prohibits auto insurance companies from charging different rates of men and women. That said, some of the insurers across Ireland have been putting these changes into place ahead of schedule, so that women are already seeing these increases, before they had been expecting them.
What is also surprising many drivers is that while the rates for women are rising, the auto insurance premiums for men are remaining the same. Men had been expecting to see a decrease in their costs, as it was expected that the higher rates that were being paid by women would offset the greater risk that males drivers present. Men are liked to a far larger number of expensive and serious crashes than women. This has many customers feeling frustrated and some are accusing insurers of using the EU gender directive to make more money as opposed to eliminating discrimination.
