Driving records of persons 65 years of age and older : are insurance rate reductions warranted?.

Simpson, Clinton H · 1971 · ROSA P / Virginia Transportation Research Council (VTRC)

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Summary

This 1971 study by Clinton H. Simpson, Jr., investigates whether automobile insurance rate reductions for drivers aged 65 and older are justified. The research was motivated by requests from the Virginia Highway Safety Commission to evaluate "good driver" rates for older motorists, who were perceived to have better driving records due to lower total accident counts. The study aimed to determine if these lower premiums were warranted by analyzing driving performance adjusted for exposure, specifically annual vehicle miles of travel. The methodology involved a comprehensive review of insurance rating factors, biological aging effects on driving, and statistical analysis of accident data. The author examined components of insurance premiums, including age, sex, marital status, and vehicle usage. Crucially, the study analyzed data from the National Safety Council and Virginia Traffic Crash Facts for 1969, comparing the number of drivers, annual miles traveled, and accident frequencies across various age groups. The analysis calculated mileage accident rates for both total and fatal accidents in the United States and Virginia, adjusting for the fact that older drivers constitute a smaller population and drive fewer miles annually than younger cohorts. The findings revealed that while drivers aged 65 and older have fewer total accidents and lower annual mileage, their accident rates per mile are not superior to other age groups. Specifically, the rates for total accidents per 10,000 driver miles and fatal accidents per 1,000,000 driver miles were higher for the 65-and-above group than for many other age classifications. The study also highlighted that biological aging impairs driving performance through reduced visual efficiency, hearing loss, slower reaction times, and chronic health conditions. Consequently, when exposure is accounted for, older drivers do not demonstrate better safety records than their younger counterparts. The study concludes that lower insurance rates for drivers aged 65 and older are unwarranted when chronological age is the sole evaluative criterion. The author argues that the current perception of older drivers as safer is misleading because it ignores their lower exposure to risk. Instead, insurance companies should base rate-setting mechanisms on more precise factors, such as annual vehicle miles of travel, individual accident history, and specific health indicators, rather than relying on broad age categories. The report suggests that maintaining or reducing rates based solely on age creates an imbalance in the insurance rating system and fails to reflect the actual risk posed by older drivers.

Key finding

Drivers aged 65 and older have higher mileage accident rates for both total and fatal accidents than many other age groups, indicating that lower insurance rates based solely on age are unwarranted.

Methodology

dataset

Provenance

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Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• older drivers
• sex gender
• age related perceptual decline

Information type

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• Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes, observational prevalence