Hubby’s great uncle died at age 88. He was still driving until probably a week before he died. He didn’t like driving on the interstate, but did his own shopping, barber shop, medical appointments, etc. Hubby had accompanied him a few times and said he did well.
My father is 77 and hasn’t driven very well for the last several years, if ever. He is an Uber driver. Be Very Afraid. (I think there may be something about a paying passenger that makes him more careful. All of his wrecks have been without passengers.)
All that to say, this really varies by the individual.
Easily yes on high-performance vehicles. Less certain about other typical new-buys, but guessing yes with lower frequency, higher severity for overall higher losses due to blind-spot detection, backup cams, and other innovations.
Just looking at some rate filings for some of the big guys. These are age of driver factors for bodily injury coverage:
State Farm tops out at a factor of 0.91 at age 98+. Age 80 has a factor of 0.87. It’s 0.80 for ages 56-67.
For Allstate, it’s 1.20 for 65-70; 1.85 for 76-80; and 2.30 for 81+.
Progressive tops out at 1.65 for ages 77+. For age 60 it’s 1.07.
So these companies don’t seem to think there’s much additional risk beyond age 80. Of course, you can’t really infer driving skill from these factors, since insurers don’t get loss experience from folks who stop driving due to age. You get a selection bias toward people who think they can drive. And insurers may have reasons to charge less than full indicated price for these folks. So take this approach with a grain of salt.
I would look at more than calendar age. There is a lot of variance in health of octagenarions.
A few advantages for insuring older drivers, mainly the fact that they don’t drive much aside from grocery shopping, Country Kitchen buffet and bridge games. They are less likely to drive late at night, and doing 45mph in the left lane with the blinker on means that accidents tend to be less severe. Sure there are the headlines of the occasional old driver that loses control and leaves a massive trail of destruction in the process, but how often do those headlines appear?
