UK motorists have experienced a 6.2 per cent fall in car insurance premiums over the past year, according to new data from comparison website Tiger.co.uk.
The site’s price index, which analyses car insurance quotes each month across a range of driver age and gender profits, revealed that prices this month have fallen by another 0.6 per cent.
However, it also showed that female drivers are still being quoted higher premiums than their male counterparts. Policy prices for men dropped by an average of 2.3 per cent in June compared to May, while women saw their policy prices increase by 1.2 per cent on average, largely as a result of increased pricing for young female drivers.
In fact, the price index worryingly found that the cost of car insurance for a typical 20 year-old female rose by 11.4 per cent month-on-month, indicating that the EU Gender Directive is already affecting women motorists despite not taking effect until December.
The new ruling will ban insurers from using gender as a factor to calculate insurance premiums, and is expected to result in lower insurance costs for young male drivers but higher prices for young females.
Andrew Goulborn, of Tiger.co.uk, said: “Generally we’ve seen pretty flat car insurance policy pricing over the last 12 months. In fact, prices have dropped slightly versus their June 2011 peak.”
“Monthly inflation is hitting women motorists – especially young women motorists – harder than males. And we’re seeing the biggest falls in premiums amongst the 45 and 55 year old groups that we monitor, with rates dropping around five to six percent month-on-month.”