Driving while female: Del. women pay more for auto insurance than men, on average

DELAWARE – If you’re a woman and you have auto insurance in Delaware, you are likely paying more than your male counterparts.

That’s even if every other factor that goes into insurance rates is identical. The discrepancy was revealed in the Delaware Department of Insurance and the Consumer Federation of America’s Gender Disparities in Auto Insurance Pricing Report.

State Senator Kyle Evans Gay is trying to fix that with Senate Bill 231. The bill would strike gender and biological sex from the list of factors that insurance companies look at when deciding how much you pay for your policy.

“I think that so many times, unfortunately, we rely on stereotypes. Gender stereotypes come into play pretty predominantly with how people think about this issue. But at the end of the day, women are getting in fewer accidents. The crash reports for women are fewer,” said Sen. Gay.

Sen. Gay says basing insurance rates off of a more equal system could not only save Delaware’s women extra money. It could also make their access to participating in society as a whole more equitable.

“When you think about car insurance, as opposed to other types of insurance, it really is like a utility. If you want to drive and access our economy, you need car insurance to do so. It’s our responsibility as legislators to make sure that that’s an equal playing field,” said Sen. Gay.

Sen. Gay adds this issue is also pressing for non-binary people, as insurance companies have no real way of determining fair rates if they’re based on gender or sex. “We’re concerned that inaccuracies and misgendering could be a result of some of these policies,” she said.

The bill passed the Senate Tuesday and is now onto the House for consideration.