My Teenager Wants to Drive and It's Driving up my Car Insurance Premium!

It’s no secret that the auto insurance industry has pegged teenagers as the group with the highest chance of getting into an accident. Despite what seems the ever increasing stories in the news about an elderly person smashing through a storefront window, it’s pretty well documented that teenagers are the most likely to be in or cause an auto accident.

However, I often found it unfair to peg all teenagers as high risk. And since they don’t have a powerful lobbying organization like the elderly to bully Congress into striking down laws curbing driving laws for them, they pretty much are told, without recourse, what, how, when and if they can drive.

Despite my objection to the sometimes unfairness teenagers get in the driving world they do in fact cause the majority or accidents on the road. By percentage, however, the elderly are not far behind. But that’s a different story I’m here to talk about what you can do to reduce the cost of insuring your child when they are ready to get their license.

Luckily many insurance companies feel the same way I do and offer special incentive plans to award teenage drivers for good driving or even good grades. Okay, so maybe they are offering these incentives to get your business, but who cares!

In addition to incentives offered by insurance companies there are a few things you can remember to do as well.Below is a quick list of your options to save money insuring your teenage driver.

Things That You Can Do

Put your teenager on your policy. Don’t set up a separate policy for your teenager. If you place him on your policy you can spread the current discounts you currently get (ex/ multi-policy discount) onto their insurance coverage

Choose the Right Car For Your Child

I’m sure I don’t have to state that a sports car is probably not a smart car to buy your child. Even if you think your daughter won’t drive like a testosterone overloaded son, she may someday hand those keys over to a boyfriend. Wow, that almost sounded like I was stereo typing boys! Well, I can do that because I was once one of them. However, girls can be just as aggressive as boys so don’t give them the extra fuel to potentially light that thought to drag race their friend to the next light.

Where was I? Right, what I really wanted to mention was that getting a car that costs less to insure is another way to save on insurance. Sports cars or popular cars are sometimes targeted more by thieves. Why, because the more out on the road the more demand for after market parts. At one time the Volkswagen Jetta, a favorite of teenagers and college students was the top stolen vehicle in the country. Make a list of potential cars you want to buy and then ask your agent which ones are the cheapest to insure. I will hopefully have that information up on the site shortly, but for now your independent agent will be happy to help.

Don’t Lose the House For A Few Bucks

Odds are your son or daughter won’t get into an accident and hurt someone, but they do hold the highest chance to do so- so protect your families’ financial health by making sure you have good personal injury coverage. If you carry less than $100,000 per injury / $300,000 per accident you’re needlessly risking your families’ financial security. I highly recommend $250,000 per injury and $500,000 per accident and even, depending on your financial position, an umbrella policy to bring that coverage up to a cool million or more. If you crunch the numbers you’ll see that it’s not worth gambling with low liability coverage.

Does Your Child Go Away To School During The Year?

Does your child go to school at least a 100 miles from home? Call you agent to see how you can reduce your coverage while they are away. Be careful with this one however. When they come home, even for a weekend or couple weeks make sure your policy covers them and if not see if you need to activate them for the time they are home. Don’t forget, if they come home for the summer than you need to add them back onto the policy. Every state differs on this so ask your independent agent for details.

Incentives That Some Insurance Companies Offer

Depending on your state and insurance carrier some or all of these incentive programs are available to you. Again, call your agent to ask what one’s are available to you.

Drive Safe and Get a Reduction