1st for Women Car Insurance

What you will learn

• Who owns 1st for Women, and why it was founded specifically for women
• What Guardian Angels actually includes, feature by feature
• What 1st for Women’s car, home, and other cover options look like
• How the 1st for Women Foundation works, and what it has achieved
• How 1st for Women is financially backed, and what is and isn’t independently rated
• Who 1st for Women suits, and who might want to compare further

Guardian Angels: The Safety System Built Into Every Policy

Guardian Angels, also marketed as Guardian Angel on Call, is 1st for Women’s defining feature and the main reason the brand exists. It is delivered through the 1st for Women app and is included with car insurance cover, not sold as a separate add-on.

The 1st for Women Foundation: Insurance With a Cause Attached

Since 2005, 1st for Women has directed a portion of every comprehensive car insurance premium, 1% of the premium, into the 1st for Women Foundation, which funds the fight against gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa. As of late 2025, the Foundation had raised more than R110 million and supported more than 170,000 women affected by GBV, funding legal assistance, counselling, prevention education, and survivor support services through partner organisations.

In 2025 alone, the Foundation reported investing close to R11 million across four major initiatives, reaching over 58,000 beneficiaries, including a schools-based prevention partnership with Action Breaks Silence that enrolled more than 11,000 learners between January and October 2025, and a specific “Undefining Masculinity” programme that worked with more than 2,300 Grade 8 and 9 boys on challenging attitudes that underpin violence against women. This is a genuinely unusual feature for a car insurance product: buying a policy directly funds a measurable, independently reported social programme, rather than sitting alongside the insurer’s separate corporate social investment spending.

Financial Strength and Group Backing

This review did not find a standalone public credit rating specifically for 1st for Women from an agency such as AM Best or GCR Ratings. First for Women Insurance Company is named as one of TIH’s principal insurance subsidiaries in GCR Ratings’ published assessment of the group, alongside Auto & General, Budget Insurance, Dialdirect, Renasa, and 1Life. GCR affirmed TIH’s own national scale long-term issuer rating at AA(ZA), with a Stable Outlook, in November 2025. As with its sister brand Dialdirect, 1st for Women’s claims-paying ability rests on the same rated group balance sheet that supports the wider TIH stable, even though it does not carry a separately published rating of its own.

Is 1st for Women Right for You?

1st for Women is a strong fit for women who genuinely want the safety features, an in-app panic button, someone who will come and wait with you if you feel unsafe, live trip monitoring, built into their car insurance, rather than relying on a separate personal safety app. It also suits buyers who want their premium to do more than pay for cover, since a share of every comprehensive premium funds a specific, well-documented anti-GBV programme. Buyers whose main priority is the single lowest premium with no interest in the safety features may find better value with Budget Insurance, while those who want the group’s own most heavily rated brand should compare Auto & General, which carries its own published GCR rating.