Drivers in Canada have been reeling from soaring auto insurance premiums with rising vehicle thefts, higher repair costs and even extreme weather. But some drivers have felt the pinch more than others.

In Toronto, a 24-year-old male driving a Ford F-150 pickup who’s been licensed since he was 18 and has no prior accidents or convictions will pay about $500 a month for their premium, or about $6,000 a year. That’s roughly $2,400 more a year than his peers in Ottawa and double what similar F-150 drivers in Kingston pay.

Age and gender weigh heavily on premiums for Canadians residing in most provinces where there’s private auto insurance, including Ontario, Alberta and Quebec, the latter having a public-private model. The government oversees car insurance in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and provincial providers there generally don’t take into account these details.

But insurance premiums are rising across the country – as much as 12 per cent in the third quarter of last year compared with the same period a year earlier. To help Canadians get the best value for their dollar, The Globe and Mail broke down what’s really driving up costs.

We focused on Ontario: the province with the highest number of drivers in the country. As in all provinces, insurance here is regulated by the provincial government and drivers are required to carry a minimum level of coverage, including third-party liability, accident benefits and collisions involving uninsured automobiles.

Using data from RATESDOTCA, an insurance comparison platform, we built a tool that shows you just how much different factors – from vehicle model to your age and location – impact your premium. Many of the same factors will influence your rates within provinces with private insurance (though New Brunswick and Newfoundland aren’t allowed to look at age or gender).

Try out the tool for yourself below. Then read to learn what factors are hurting your rate the most and how you can ease financial blows.

Two factors: age and gender

Picture this: You and your partner blissfully pay $2,500 a year for full-coverage car insurance in Ontario. If your teen aces their G2 road test and you add them as a secondary driver, that number would likely go up by between 50 to 75 per cent.

If an 18-year-old plans to drive their own car, their insurance bill now jumps to around $14,000 a year before eligible discounts. (A secondary driver using a parent’s car will pay much less than a teen who’s listed as the primary driver on the vehicle.)

If the teen happens to be an 18-year-old male, his rate can be between 30 to 45 per cent higher on average than for a woman the same age. Once someone reaches the age of 25 though, gender stops playing a material role, said Steve Cohen, vice-president of insurance and chief underwriting officer at RATESDOTCA. But a newly-licensed 25-year-old driver will still pay, on average, 25 to 30 per cent more than a 25-year-old who has been licensed since they were 18 years old.

“The biggest factors for your car insurance is gonna be your experience…that’s gonna be heavily correlated to your age,” said Mr. Cohen. “But it’s really about the number of years you’ve been driving.”

What you can do:

Paying the full 12 months of your premium upfront – as much as $14,000 or more for an 18-year-old male in Toronto before discounts – can shave 5 to 10 per cent off your premium with some companies, according to Eric Hayes, sales manager and broker for McDougall Insurance & Financial in Belleville, Ont.

The bank of mom and dad can also save between 5 to 15 per cent on insurance premiums through bundling – putting multiple policies, such as home and auto, under one provider – according to data from RATESDOTCA.

Adam Mitchell, chief executive officer of Mitch Insurance Brokers in Toronto, said some providers offer additional savings simply for aligning auto and home insurance renewal dates.

Choosing a Chrysler, Chevrolet and GMC model vehicle can help you or your teen get a lower average insurance rate than other models, according to 2024 data from ThinkInsure, a Toronto-based insurance broker. For used vehicles, a Buick Lucerne, Volvo V70 and Buick LaCrosse had some of the lowest premiums.

Mr. Mitchell said while there’s long been a focus on not buying sports cars for teenagers, modifying your cars – suspension and engine updates to get that “vroom, vroom” sound, for example – can also increase rates.

The factor: traffic convictions (even minor ones)

Not all traffic tickets come with demerit points on your licence – you generally won’t get one in Ontario for going 15 kilometres an hour or less over the speed limit – but that ticket will still weigh on your insurance premium.

Expect your rate to climb 10 per cent for a first minor traffic conviction, such as speeding. For your second, be ready for another 10- to 15-per-cent spike. These violations can impact your premium for three years unless a violation results in a licence suspension, in which case the impact can be much longer.

Getting convicted of a major violation such as calling on a handheld cellphone while driving – something a whopping quarter of Canadians admit to doing – will hike your premium by 50 per cent or more. Rates will rise 30 per cent, on average, if you have an accident that is your fault, though if you have too many claims and convictions you may no longer be eligible for standard carriers.

What you can do:

Experts recommend paying the annual fee – ranging from about $60 to $100 – that most insurers offer to guarantee that your premium doesn’t go up after your first at-fault accident.

“Somebody…could be paying $1,500 a month or $1,200 a year for insurance, and then you know, you have an accident, and you’re paying six grand,” said Ashleigh Dac, an insurance broker at All-Risks Insurance Brokers Ltd. in Cambridge, Ont.

The accident will stay on your record permanently and without accident forgiveness, a collision will continue to impact your rates for about six to 10 years, depending on the company. A minor traffic conviction can affect your record for three years from the conviction date.

Mr. Hayes said it’s more important to have accident forgiveness than minor conviction protection. But protection for both follows the policy, not the driver. If you switch insurers, the blunder will factor into your premium.

The factor: your car model

Vehicles that are more expensive to purchase, more expensive to repair, and more likely to be stolen or involved in accidents will cost more to insure than others.

In 2023, the cost of insurance claims to replace stolen vehicles in Canada reached a record-breaking $1.5-billion, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. That’s an increase of 254 per cent from 2018 and 524 per cent for Ontario.

Topping the charts of Équité Association’s annual list of the 10 most-stolen cars by province were vehicles with keyless ignition and those made after 2019. The 2021 Toyota Highlander overthrew the Honda CR-V to be awarded Canada’s most-stolen car last year.

What you can do:

Driving a high-risk vehicle can make postal-code-related hits to your premium worse. You can shave as much as $1,000 or more off your annual premium by installing anti-theft equipment, according to ThinkInsure. You’ll also potentially prevent a surcharge of $500 to $1,500 from providers such as the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA), Aviva Insurance Co. of Canada, Pafco Insurance Co. and Chubb Canada.

Buyer beware: Manufacturer-installed tracking devices usually won’t count toward reducing that surcharge. Most Ontario providers want you to install Tag, a brand of wireless tracking devices that often partners with insurance carriers.

The gadget can set you back around $400 – no small cost given that the cheapest monthly rate for a 2022 Toyota Highlander in Ontario was around $250.

Bumping up your deductible – the amount you pay out of pocket in the event of an insurance claim – can also reduce your coverage fees by 5 to 10 per cent, according to Ms. Dac.

The factor: location. It matters, but insurers are evaluating geographic boundaries

If someone moves to Toronto from Ottawa or Kingston, their auto insurance premiums shoot up by as much as 57 to 85 per cent. Premiums in densely-populated urban areas can cost more than twice as much as rural areas, said RATESDOTCA’s Mr. Cohen.

Traffic flows, collision rates, chances of vandalism and theft, and even weather in your postal code can all bump up your premium.

The way postal codes impact your premium may change for some drivers. In 2024, The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) launched a pilot to re-evaluate auto insurance rating territories. Customers of Allstate Insurance, one of the pilot’s voluntary participants, normally see rates fluctuate when they move to a different rating territory (Orangeville to Whitby, for example). With the new system, a customer who moves within Orangeville may see changes in their premium.

What you can do:

Look into safe-parking discounts for your vehicle from your insurer. “If it’s in a private garage or secured driveway...it’s harder to steal,” said Mr. Hayes. There are also alumni discounts, university discounts and trade association discounts. Each could cut about 5 per cent off your premium.

Telematics – computerized applications that monitor things such as a vehicle’s speed and sudden braking – offer savings of 15 to 35 per cent, according to Mitch Insurance. But some experts are split on recommending them.

Ratehub.ca’s vice-president of Insurance, Matt Hands, said telematics initially weren’t allowed to hurt your premium. But FSRA introduced a new policy in 2021 that allows reported negative driving behaviour to be used to hike your rate.

“I’ve never really got good answers on how it factors in highway driving,” he said. “Let’s be honest, the highway speed limit might say 100 or 110, but…you’re gonna go with the speed of traffic.”

Other ways to save

Work from home: Insurance rates can increase the more you drive. Since working from home decreases the distance you travel, your premium might go down as well. Some providers also offer a discount if your daily commute is less than five kilometres, for example.

Pay as you go: If you don’t drive frequently, insurance from CAA offers a pay-as-you-go option that lets drivers save through a tracker. Drivers get a rate based on how much or how little they drive and pricing adjusts accordingly.

High credit score in certain provinces: While Ontario and Newfoundland explicitly ban insurance companies from using credit scores to determine car insurance rates, other privatized jurisdictions don’t. In January, Aviva Insurance told The Globe it gave discounts to drivers with better credit scores, but did not penalize ones with low scores.

Marital status: Married couples can see lower insurance premiums with some providers. Best of all, you don’t need to buy a white dress and go down to city hall. The savings can apply to common-law couples too, said Ms. Dac.

Methodology:

The car insurance tool is based on eight key variables that affect premiums. It includes a total of 9,000 options, with each quote sourced from up to eight different insurance companies. RATESDOTCA was commissioned to create a statistical model to predict baseline premiums one can expect in Ontario and assess the impact of individual factors, both independently and in combination. Vehicle options are 2023 models. At-fault accidents within the past six years and traffic convictions within the past three years are considered.

Many factors beyond the eight we include here can affect auto insurance premiums, and quotes can vary significantly between carriers. Therefore, for each profile, we developed a range of premiums as a more reliable reference. The lowest quotes from all profiles were used to predict the lower end of each profile, while the averages of the lowest three quotes were used for the higher end. Common discounts, such as multiline discount, multivehicle discount and winter tires discount, are not considered in our assessment, and the predictions do not represent the lowest rate a consumer may find in the market. Among the options provided, some show very high insurance costs, typically for young policyholders or those with blemished driving records. However, the 9,000 profiles do not reflect the distribution of customers on RATESDOTCA or in the general population.