Car insurers are way off-base in charging 70-year-old drivers more because of their age

Here’s a riddle for you. Why do senior drivers 70 and older pay more, on average, for car insurance than drivers in their 60s?

(A.) 70-year-old drivers have more fatal accidents.

(B.) 70-year-old drivers have more nonfatal accidents.

(C.) 70-year-old drivers are more likely to be uninsured.

My husband’s answer was none of the above. “They just want to make more money,” he said.

After a new study by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias found senior drivers among the safest in the state, I agree with him.

According to CarInsurance.com — which describes itself as an unbiased resource to help consumers determine how much they should pay for coverage — the average car insurance cost for a 60-year-old driver in Illinois is $1,251 for a full coverage policy. Drivers who are 70 pay $1,400 for the same coverage.

In Illinois, 70-year-old drivers pay 12% more than 60-year-old drivers, and 75-year-old drivers pay 25% more for a full coverage policy.

“Car insurance premiums go up for most senior drivers in their mid-60s and continue to climb,” according to a 2022 data analysis by CarInsurance.

The 2022 crash data compiled by the Illinois Department of Transportation found that drivers 75 and older had a crash rate of 24.39 crashes per 1,000 drivers — lower than every age range of drivers between 16 and 69 years old, according to Giannoulias.

Nationwide, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported about 7,500 older adults were killed in traffic crashes in the United States in 2020.

“Drivers aged 70+ have higher crash death rates per 1,000 than middle-aged drivers (aged 35-54),” the CDC found, noting that higher crash death rates among the senior group are primarily due to “increased vulnerability to injury in a crash.”

But the CDC report also found this: “Older adults are more likely to have safer driving behaviors than other age groups.”

So shouldn’t safer driving behaviors count for something — like a lower cost for car insurance?

After all, age is just a number.

Recently, we witnessed Dorothy Hoffner, a 104-year-old woman from Ottawa, became the world’s oldest skydiver. And not long ago I had lunch with a delightful 92-year-old woman who was as active as some half her age.

We are individuals, not a group.

More importantly, why should seniors, who often struggle to get by on a fixed income, have to deal with this discrimination?

We can’t do anything about aging.

But we can ensure that we are aware of our limitations and take the necessary steps to be safe by wearing a seat belt, not using a cellphone when we are behind the wheel and keeping our eyes on the road.

If I do those things and maintain a clean driving record, why should I pay more than a 60-year-old for car insurance just because I’m 10 years older?

In an article posted on the Investopedia website: “Discrimination in Insurance Underwriting Guidelines,” the authors wrote that “questions about what counts as fair or unfair discrimination have received increasing attention, especially since George Floyd’s murder in 2020.”

But these questions are not new. Going back far longer, consumers have protested historically biased insurance rules that included redlining, restrictive covenants, ZIP codes and credit scores to price auto insurance.

While actuaries have successfully defended their rates, consumer advocates argue that companies should determine rates using factors people can control.

We certainly can’t control aging.

Besides, it is unfair that older Americans have to pay more for essentials like car insurance premiums and medical care when they have less money.

And it can get worse.

In 2020, the CDC pointed out that “almost 48 million licensed drivers ages 65 and older are in the United States, a 68% increase since 2000.”

That means a lot of money will go into the insurance industry’s coffers, and a lot less will stay in our pockets.

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