2017: Women Start Paying More Than Men For Car Insurance - 2019: 'Gender Discrimination' Outlawed

Gender inequality is an incredibly pervasive problem all across the world and affects people in more ways than most of us realize. I, for example, wasn't aware that a person's stated gender would affect the price of their car insurance, but the good news is that as of Jan. 1, 2019, in California, that's no longer the case.

California's Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones issued a statement on Friday that as part of the Gender Non-Discrimination in Automobile Insurance Rating Regulation, insurers would no longer be allowed to use gender to calculate private auto insurance.

"My priority as Insurance Commissioner is to protect all California consumers, and these regulations ensure that auto insurance rates are based on factors within a driver's control, rather than personal characteristics over which drivers have no control," Jones said.

According to a report by the car insurance search engine The Zebra, the gap in price between men and women hasn't been huge -- the national average is around 1 percent -- and typically it's seen men pay more. That trend reversed itself in 2017, and now we see women in most states paying a higher premium.