How does your title affect your car insurance quote? Data reveals price gulf between Mr, Mrs, Miss and Ms

Daily Mail​

01-07-2025

Despite laws being in place to make it illegal for insurance providers to discriminate by gender, male drivers are still being quoted hundreds more for motor cover, according to data obtained by consumer group Which?.
Motorists who select 'Mr' as their title when running insurance quotes using comparison websites consistently face higher average prices than those entering 'Mrs', 'Miss' or 'Ms', it found.
In the past, car insurance quotes for women had typically been cheaper than men based on risk calculations by providers, triggering the launch of some female-exclusive insurers, such as Sheila's Wheels.
However, under rules imposed in 2012, it is illegal for motor insurance providers to use a driver's gender to determine the cost of a quote.
Despite this, comparison websites Confused.com and Quotezone shared data suggesting there remains a significant gulf in prices quoted to men compared to women.
Based on average quoted premiums, this can be as much as £1,000, the consumer watchdog revealed.
Both comparison sites confirmed that their own quoted figures showed that drivers selecting 'Mr' are quoted the highest average premiums.
Based on data collated the first three months of this year, Confused.com said the average quoted price for a 'Mr' was £1,695.
However, for a 'Miss' it was £1,331 - a saving of £364, or 21 per cent.
For those selecting 'Mrs' as their title, the average quoted premium was substantially lower at £863 - which is half the price of the typical price given for a 'Mr'.
But the cheapest title of all - on average - is 'Ms'.
Women who select this option were faced an average annual insurance quote of just £720, which is a £975 saving compared to a male driver - a massive 58 per cent less.
This Confused.com data suggests there's some disparity across female titles, too; women who list themselves as 'Ms' are being quoted £611 less on average than those who input 'Miss' when requested to provide their title. That's a saving of 46 per cent.
Figures presented by Quotezone - also based on data for January to March 2025 - showed a similar pattern of pricing disparity by gender title, though not to the same extent reported by Confused.com.
The data it supplied to Which? was broken down by age in ten-year increments.
For drivers aged 30, the biggest price difference between a male and female title was over £300 ('Mr' vs 'Ms').
However, the gender price gap between those titles shrinks to just £100 when drivers reach 60 years.
The data also differs from Confused.com, with the most expensive premiums quoted to married female motorists with 'Mrs' titles when aged 30 or 40. However, for 50 and 60-year-old women drivers, 'Miss' is the most expensive title to have.
'Ms' remains the cheapest female title of all in Quotezone's data.
Despite the clear difference, both comparison sites told Which? that a customer's title is not used directly when generating prices, but they are still reflective of risk profiles.
Rhydian Jones, commercial director at Confused.com, told the consumer group: 'Data shows that men typically pay more for their insurance than women. And this is due to the fact that, statistically, men tend to have a higher risk profile than women.
'While data suggests that women are marginally more likely to have made a claim, or have a relatively similar number of convictions to men, data suggests that it's often the case that the severity of these are far greater for men.'
The Confused spokesman said that men are statistically 'twice as likely' to have more severe convictions - such as driving without insurance, careless driving, or driving under the influence - as well as having more instances of multiple, or higher penalties on their licences, which has an impact on premiums.
Greg Wilson, CEO of Quotezone, also told Which?: 'While our stats show that customers with the title 'Mr' are often quoted higher premiums, this is not due to their title or gender, but because on average, individuals in this group tend to present higher risk factors.'
Wilson said this could be due to a multitude of other factors, such as occupation, annual mileage, claims and conviction history, or other 'relevant factors' that insurers use to assess risk.
Rules on gender-neutral pricing in insurance were rung in by the European Union on 21 December 2012.
The European Court of Justice mandated that insurance providers could no longer use sex as a factor in calculating premiums.
This meant that women, who had previously benefited from cheaper car insurance rates due to a gender-based expectation of fewer accidents and longer life expectance, experienced an increase in premiums of around £300, while men could have expected to see their policy prices fall by around £180 to bridge the sex gap.
The rules impacted all new contracts for insurance products, including car insurance, life insurance and annuities.