In most states, it is perfectly legal (and common) for insurers to consider your age and gender while calculating your car insurance premiums. This is done for a variety of reasons, but is primarily done to help evaluate your risk as an insured driver. Risk refers to how likely you are to get in a wreck or file a car insurance claim. Since insurers don’t want you to file claims, especially not frequent claims, they may charge you more based on your risk level to compensate for potential losses.

This isn’t true everywhere, however. Some states restrict the factors an insurer may use to decide your car insurance premiums, such as your marital status and gender. In others, insurers are not allowed to use age, but get around this by instead considering the length of time you have been driving.

How Much Do My Age and Gender Affect My Car Insurance Rates?

In general, your age and gender may not have as large of an affect on your car insurance premiums as you think. It is true that teenagers typically pay higher rates than adults and that rates tend to go down once you turn 25 years old. Premiums based on gender are different, however. On average, males tend to pay higher premiums than females at a younger age. In fact, a younger man may pay 14% more than women of the same age for car insurance. This is because young men are statistically more likely to get into wrecks or participate in reckless driving than young females.

The difference between these two genders becomes generally smaller the older the driver gets.

For example, a 16-year-old female driver pays an average of $3,378 for a six-month policy while a 16-year-old male driver pays an average of $3,897 for the same policy. There is a drastic drop between ages 16 and 24 for both of these genders. A 24-year-old female may pay an average of $1,242 for a six-month car insurance policy while a 24-year-old male pays an average of $1,381 for the same policy.

While gender can affect rates, the difference grows less noticeable as the drivers age. Age can be a large factor when it comes to car insurance, but you may see little influence of these factors in your car insurance rates after the age of 24-25.

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