My £2,049 penalty for being a swindled single

Holidays. Insurance. Even joining the gym. Why does it all cost more if you’re on your own, asks CLAUDIA CONNELL

Did you know singletons like me are the most reckless in the world? if we’re not causing floods and fires at home, we’re wrapping our cars round lampposts and breaking our legs on holiday.

News to you? That’s because it isn’t true. Single people are no more clumsy or negligent than those who are married and yet we are often charged far more for products and services, for no other reason than the fact we don’t have a plus one.

dubbed ‘the single tax’, we can expect to pay more for our insurance, hotel rooms, travel and club memberships.

A recent study by The Good Housekeeping institute discovered that the hidden penalty for being single in the UK is £2,049 per year. Twenty years ago, i might have said that amounts to an awful lot of Chardonnay.

But today, aged 52, i’m more inclined to think it’s a sum i could be chucking into my pension fund.

As somebody who has never married, i’ve never had the cushion of a second income during lean times. i’ve made my peace with the fact that there are no shortage of builders, plumbers or mechanics who’ll happily attempt to fleece me if they sense there is no significant other on the scene.

i have accepted, too, that with nobody to split the cost of a present or travel with, weddings, christening and parties will cost me far more than they do my married friends. if i host a dinner party i know the couples who come will bring a bottle of wine between them and then drink five times as much. it’s part and parcel of being unattached and i try not to feel too bitter about it.

But nobody forces me to throw dinner parties or go to weddings. What i didn’t appreciate was how much i am being ripped off when it comes to things i can’t opt out of.

As the only person living in my house, i produce little waste for my local authority to collect, yet i only get a 25 per cent reduction on my council tax bill, not 50 per cent.

And it doesn’t stop there. To put the ‘single tax’ claims to the test, i decided to look at insurance on a price comparison website. Firstly, i entered my details as a single woman of 52, looking for fully comprehensive insurance on a five-year-old Volkswagen Golf. The cheapest offered to me was from Admiral who were prepared to insure me for £337, Sainsbury’s came in at £443 while my bank Halifax offered £375.

NexT, i keyed in the exact same details but (as all insurers want to know your marital status) i claimed to be married. Suddenly Admiral were happy to drop my premiums to £318, Sainsbury’s to £426 and Halifax to £348.

My imaginary husband wasn’t even named on the insurance policy as a driver, yet his steadying presence in the home was enough to save me an average of £30 with insurers.

i imagined my home insurance might at least be cheaper. Being part of a couple surely means you double your chances of ruining carpets, dropping iPhones down the loo or breaking laptops?

Yet again, insurance companies wanted to charge me more for being single.

This time the difference was only a few pounds, but why is there any discrepancy at all? do companies think we singletons are all wild and crazy?

Financial expert Jasmine Birtles, founder of website moneymagpie.

com says: ‘it’s very unfair and outdated to penalise single people in this way. They are using figures from decades ago and making assumptions about single people from generations past, when more people married, and married younger. But being single today doesn’t mean you’re a party animal with no responsibility.’

i suppose if i did want to demonstrate how sensible i was in middle age i could join the National Trust. However, a visit to its website reveals they offer preferential rates for couples.

A married couple opting for a joint membership will pay £57 each, whereas i will stump up £69 to walk around a stately home or three on my tod.

even at the gym, many chains such as Nuffield or david Lloyd offer discounts of up to 25 per cent for couples.

More people than ever are single and live alone in Britain (3.9 million at the last Office for National Statistics) count in 2017), yet it still feels as if the world is set up to cater for couples.

At supermarkets, products sold in larger sizes — such as milk, yogurt, margarine and chicken breasts — work out cheaper than buying small, individual portions.

So as a single person you have a choice: buy smaller and pay more or go for the four-pack of chicken and two-pack of salmon and eat the same thing over and over.

in the face of so much hostility, jetting off for a relaxing holiday might sound like a sensible solution, except travel is one area where the single tax falls most heavily. Solo travel is one of the fastest growing areas in the leisure industry — a 143 per cent increase over three years — rich pickings for the single tax sharks.

Royal Caribbean, for example, wants to charge me £800 more for going on the same cruise and staying in the same room as a couple.

Their ten-night inclusive cruise of the Canary islands departing next May will cost me £3,598 for a balcony room. A couple will pay £2,798. Won’t a single person use fewer towels, generally make less of a mess and consume far less than a couple?

Single rooms in hotels are few and far between these days, and while i won’t pay more for occupying a double room solo, i won’t be offered discounts either. Couples booking flights together only pay one booking fee, not two and they even have their own Two-For-One Rail card to ease costs.

A couple travelling together by train can now get a third off tickets on certain standard and first-class fares, while us single muggins pay full fare.

As Jasmine Birtles points out, the single tax is something that must be stopped: ‘Six years ago new rules were introduced that stopped insurance companies charging higher premiums based on gender as men were often charged more for car insurance.

‘But nobody has addressed the issue of single people being charged more than married ones and, as the single population increases, it’s something that urgently needs to be looked into.’

i do hope the imbalance is addressed in my lifetime. Should i pop my clogs without having married, my beneficiaries can expect to pay 40 per cent death duties on my estate valued over £325k, but spouses can pass estates to one another without penalty.

MY eSTATe may consist largely of my home, bought with my taxed income (that’s never benefited from a married tax allowance), but being unmarried and without children means i can’t bequeath it without a hefty levy.

Single life isn’t all doom and gloom. i’m thankful to have freedoms many of my married friends don’t.

i have a sense of satisfaction that everything i own i’ve paid for without having to lean on a partner. My money is my own to spend as i see fit without having to justify extravagant purchases to anyone else.

Single, middle-aged women like me have strong spending power — and we’d have even more of it if people stopped ripping us off.

it was author Helen Fielding, through her creation Bridget Jones, who introduced us to the term ‘smug marrieds’.

it now feels like we singletons need a phrase of our own that perfectly sums us up. How about ‘swindled singles?’

2.4 million people aged 45-65 live alone in the UK