Women drivers pay the price of equality as their insurance premiums soar (but the men's are cheaper)

Young women drivers are paying the price of equality as premiums soar to record new highs of more than £2,200 a year, new research reveals today.

Comprehensive car insurance prices for them have rocketed this year by 20.7 per cent as a European Union ban on ‘gender-based pricing’ takes effect.

The price for men has dropped by a similar amount.

It means the average comprehensive car insurance premium for women aged 17 to 20 now stands at £2,256.

It's good news for equality, but bad news for the bills: Car insurance prices forwomen have rocketed this year by 20.7 per cent

In contrast, quoted prices for 17 to 20 year old men fell by an average of 21.6 per cent over the same period. But the cost is still a hefty £2,848 - £592 more than women.

The change comes as the overall average cost of comprehensive car insurance dropped to £736 - or £80 cheaper than this time last year.

The average price gap between men and women’s insurance premiums is now just £27 .

The consumer price-index compiled by insurer Confused.com and experts Towers Watson reveals that young female drivers ‘are the hardest hit by EU gender directive’ which was brought in to stop discrimination between the sexes.

The average price gap between men and women¿s insurance premiums is now just £27

According to the confused.com report, this is the ‘biggest year on year jump from one quarter to the next the industry has ever reported.’

The report said: ‘Young female motorists have traditionally enjoyed much lower car insurance premiums than their male counterparts, due to the fact they are statistically less likely to make a claim.

‘However under the EU Gender Directive, which took effect on December 21st 2012, insurers are no longer able to use gender as a factor when pricing insurance.’

Opponents of the gender rules had argued - unsuccessfully - that women deserved to pay less because, statistically they were less of a risk so deserved to pay lower premiums.

Research suggests while women may have more low impact and less costly shunts such as when parking, men tend to have more dramatic and costly crashes. But the EU ruled that despite this it statistical trend was wrong to discriminate on grounds of gender.

The report said: ‘This is a huge contrast to price differences seen this time last year, when men were paying £117 more than their female counterparts on average for their car insurance.’ Then, men were paying £868 compared to women paying £751 on average.

But it added: ‘A larger price gulf remains amongst the younger age group, which currently sees 17 to 20 year old males pay £2,848 on average for their comprehensive car insurance premiums, with females of the same age paying £2,256 - a price difference of £592.’

Across the UK as a whole, average car insurance premiums have fallen by 9.8 per cent over the year.

But the most expensive comprehensive car insurance premiums are in East London where they average £1,519, closely followed by Ilford, Uxbridge, and North West London where motorists can pay more than £1,300 on average.

The Scottish Borders, North and North East Scotland enjoy the lowest comprehensive car insurance premiums paying on average £497.

For Third Party Fire and Theft cover only, average premiums for the first quarter stood at £1,169.

This represents a slight increase of 1.0 per cent year-on-year and 2.7 per cent quarter on quarter.