The move follows a campaign by UK insurers Diamond and the British brokers association to have an EU directive reversed which would have prevented companies from taking gender into account when calculating costs.

Fears had been growing up until recently that Diamond and other insurers who solely target females would fall foul of the directive.

However the directive was never written into law following extensive lobbying by the British government which this month changed its own legislation to allow it to go ahead.

The head of the its4women project rejected the notion that they was anything negative about just serving one gender in the market but did admit that it could be technically defined as sexist.

"I suppose you could say its sexist but the reality is that women are better drivers then men. The statistics show that, " said Emma Beattie general manager in MCL insurance.

"It's a positive form of discrimination. We are giving female drivers a discount and we have spotted a niche that was missing in the market. Young males tend to speed more and have more expensive cars and therefore their claims are of a different nature. Risk profiling is done for everyone. We shouldn't be criticised for having a good product, " she told the Sunday Tribune.

Beattie says she would not be against cheap insurance for men if a company could operate on such a discount.

"If there is a market for it why not?" she said.

MCL employs 35 people from its headquarters in Coleraine and are planning to make a move into the Republic's insurance market.

They hope to generate earnings of 2.5m from the its4women project.