Nowadays car insurance companies prefer female drivers to male drivers as they are considered as less risky drivers. Although a lot of men would disagree! It may surprise you to know that it isn't necessarily because women have fewer accidents. They are involved in as many accidents as men. However, the overall damage caused by women is not as much in the majority of cases. Subsequently their insurance claims after are a lot less overall. That is why on an average women's car insurance premiums tend to be at least 20% % lower than that of their male counterparts having the same demographic profile.

Women, in general, drive at lower speeds than men. It's all these boy-racers who are making it hard for their older counterparts. And even some of the older men driver faster than they can really handle or control. So due to the number of lower speed by women the accidents caused by lady drivers are not as serious. So, even if they might make a claim as often as males do their claims are just less, which gives insurers lower premiums. Since male drivers, on average, drive at higher speeds then even if they crash on their own, the loss is high.

A female is regarded to be a better risk even from the age of 17. There are many premium discounts available for young lady drivers, like taking the pass plus certificate. The pass-plus is a series of extra lessons that a young lady driver learns following their standard driving test. Passing the pass-plus can gain you a discount of around 30% for the first year. Given how much some insurance companies charge to first time drivers a 30% discount could equate to a few ?100. That would be enough to full the petrol tank for a good few miles!

And even more recently a number of new car insurance companies have started to specialise in car insurance for women drivers. These companies tend to insure women drivers only. An example of this in the UK would be Sheila's Wheels. In fact they can be so strict as to not encourage the woman to get an insurance policy with her husband. Because they can't give the same level of discount due to the perceived risk posed by the husband. So the best deal is to just get the woman insured on a stand-alone policy as this gives the lowest risk and hence the lowest premiums. It means providing less risk in total, meaning lower premiums in total.

So, for the insurance companies there is a double edge sword, which can really pay off. On the one hand they offer lower premiums which means equates to lower profits. However they expect to generate a high volume of insurance policies for women so that tips the balance in their favour as more and more women seeks out these specialised policies.

You should seriously consider these specialist companies if you are a woman. As with any standard insurance policy you can benefit from additional discounts if you park your car overnight in the garage, or off-street. Or by getting additional driving lessons, such as the Advanced Drivers Test, or driving a low amount of miles over the course of the insurance year.