Where Being Female Pays

So, we often are so focused on the discrepancy between male and female wages that we forget to actually look for where it might pay to be female: Car insurance. I'm sure I still have plenty to write about automotive maintenance, but when it comes to car insurance, we girls win! Yes, gender and age are taken into account when being handed a car insurance quote.

All insurance companies set their rates by way of determining their risks. They do this through compilation of various statistics and according to the insurance companiees, women are far less riskier than males of the same age when it comes to driving behavior. Age and marital status also influence what type of rate you get. The older you get, the more experience and maturity the car insurance companies believe you have. Being married, apparently lowers your car insurance rate, which I think is just plain bias. Why should a woman have to marry just to lower her insurance even more. You'd think they would penalize her for marrying a high risk driver!

Anyways, apparently, car insurance companies think women are far calmer drivers that males. Kind of shoots the old "bad women driver" myth in the foot, doesn't it?

One wonderful idea has come about of the UK: temporary comprehensive coverage. Seriously. You can get a car insurance quote for that special someone who wants to loan your cars for a couple of days. You can choose to cover someone for up to 28 days. Why do I think this is a great idea? Simply because in the UK it's about 10 pounds per day and 4 pounds (about $20 and $8 respectively) thereafter. If it was established in the US, why cover your husband or boyfriend for the time he's not driving your car? He's a high risk anyway.

Then if you take a trip to your Orlando Vacation Rental and need to share the driving, take your husband or whomever and take your car (with the lower insurance rate) and add them on temporarily. You might save money that way. An interesting coincidence about Orlando is that just a 45 minute drive from the theme parks takes you countryside very similar to the UK with rolling hills and oak trees. Orlando has some of the best shopping experiences in the U.S. and the Everglades just to the South, as well, but you got to drive to get there! Coincidentally, the UK is where the temporary comprehensive coverage appears to have started. But, it doesn't appear to be available in the U.S. yet.

Also, if you don't drive your car every day, maybe they would let us get short term insurance for ourselves! I think that would save a lot of money on insurance! I would just schedule certain days when I use the cars, and others when it just stays parked, if they had such a flexible plan. Seeing that regular insurance costs hundreds a month, this would be a real flexible way to handle insurance for those of us who don't go out a lot or who have people who constantly want to borrow our car. Or we could just have one car for several people. Co-oping cars! We could reduce a ton of waste in this country if we did that.