If you’re young and single, you might be ready to mingle, but you should also be ready to pay more for car insurance.
A 20-year-old who is married pays 21% less for a car insurance policy than their single counterpart, according to a new report from insuranceQuotes.com.
In other words, you could save a bundle on car insurance by getting hitched.
This savings opportunity is largest in your early 20s. By the time you reach age 25, you’ll save just 7% on a car insurance policy by being married. By age 30, this savings has diminished to about 2%.
This is to say that many Americans, who are increasingly getting married later in life, should be ready to fork over extra cash for the privilege of driving while single.
Of course, it’s your age that is driving higher rates in the first place. Car insurance is the costliest for young drivers, who are proven to be particularly accident-prone, and gets cheaper with each birthday you celebrate essentially until you retire, finds the report. This isn’t surprising, given that you can’t rent a car until you’re 25. In fact, if you waited to buy a car at 25 instead of 20, you’d pay 41% less to insure it.
In nearly every state, insurance companies are allowed to consider your marital status and age when calculating your rate. The exception is Hawaii, where insurance companies have to turn a blind eye. In California, insurance companies are required to ask for the number of years you’ve been driving rather than your age.
“Plenty of families worry about when grandma or grandpa should stop driving, but the data shows that drivers in their teens and early 20s are much more risky,” says Laura Adams, senior analyst at insuranceQuotes.com.
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