the cost of a teen driver

[swamp]

DS will be eligible to get his learner's permit soon.  He should have his license by the end of the year. 

I called my insurance agent to ask the cost of adding him to our insurance.   I plan on giving him my old van, buying a new one for me, having DS listed as a driver of the old van only, and take collision insurance off the old van.   DS is also an honor student, so he gets that discount. 

$3,500 per year.   

Ouch. 

[minnesotapaintlady]

I got my son an old car that didn't need collision insurance and that cut a lot.  He started out with it being $900/year and dropped every year on his birthday.  We are through State Farm and he got an additional discount for completing their "Steer Clear" program, which was mostly a lot of logging hours with a parent.

[NoNamePerson]

WOW and that's for liability only from what you posted. I admit that mine was insured back in the dark ages and was on my insurance even though he had his own clunker. But if it makes you feel any better I almost had a heart attack at what the change was back then. Is he able to drive any of your other vehicles? Never mind, I hate insurance it is a friggin black hole to me. 

My biggest cost of a teen driver was my mama bear nerves the first time he left after dark! Funny day driving didn't bother me that much  

[laterbloomer]

I think it might be because he is the primary driver. It's a few years ago now, but it only cost me $60/month to add GW to my car insurance as a secondary driver.

[pooks]

Wow that is alot!  DD got her license almost 4 years ago and it was $600 more a year to add her to our policy.  That was full coverage and she is the primary driver on a 2008 Impreza.  It has gone down since then, though not much since used car values went up.  

[tractor]

It varies from state to state. In Michigan, the land of excessive rates, having two drivers under the age of 26 on my policy adds $5,000/year on my policy. Regardless of coverage, the theory is they could drive any car I own (not just their car), and we are charged accordingly.

I can't wait to boot them out so I can buy a "fun" car...

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I forgot the price difference but my dad had a stroke over my brother's rates and my rates.

One way he got it down was he was the primary owner/driver and my brother was listed as a secondary.

Then he had to do all the safe driver courses to get those discounts.

But it was still pretty high. TEEN Boys apparently are that much higher of a risk group.

[busymom]

You need to move to a less expensive state.     (Don't move to Florida--rates are crazy-high there.)   Having teen drivers is expensive enough as it is.  At least you've got an honor student.


I'm shocked that your kids are already old enough to drive!  Where does the time go?

[minnesotapaintlady]

Last year when my son left for college I called the insurance company since he wasn't taking the car and they pretty much cut his rate in half!  He can drive when home on breaks and over the summer and I use his car as a spare, but it's only $27/month now. 

[bookkeeper]

Apr 26, 2022 11:26:05 GMT -5 swamp said:

DS will be eligible to get his learner's permit soon.  He should have his license by the end of the year. 

I called my insurance agent to ask the cost of adding him to our insurance.   I plan on giving him my old van, buying a new one for me, having DS listed as a driver of the old van only, and take collision insurance off the old van.   DS is also an honor student, so he gets that discount. 

$3,500 per year.   

Ouch. 

You say the agent quoted you coverage without collision insurance.  Does that quote still include comprehensive?  On our older cars, the comprehensive coverage cost as much as the collision portion.  Might want to ask about liability only.  I would also check several insurance companies.  When we lived in Nebraska, our policy rated our sons on all our vehicles.  When DS#2 was off to college in a $5000 car, we changed the title to his name and got a liability only policy for him.  As I recall, it saved us over $100/month.

I would bet you could do better than that price if you look around.

[Deleted]

Neither of my children were really interested in getting their driver’s licenses when they were teens. I didn’t understand, because I got my driver’s license ASAP when I  turned 16. Like, within a few days. The rules have changed since back then, but my children still weren’t really interested in getting driver’s licenses when they were teens.

DD was in her early 20’s when she finally got a license. She didn’t even live with me at the time, but my insurance company informed me that my car insurance was going up by some ridiculous amount of money because DD had gotten a driver’s license. Even when she didn’t live with me, she always used my address for important stuff, so as far as my insurance company knew, she lived with me and might drive my car.

I called them and the only way to not pay the much higher premium was to specifically exclude her as a driver. She literally has not driven my car at all since then.

DS got his driver’s license in his early 20’s too. But by then, he was living in another state and it didn’t affect my insurance rates.

As far as I understand it, any licensed driver in your household is assumed to drive whatever vehicles you own. Unmarried drivers under the age of 25 cause your rates to increase. Unmarried MALE drivers under the age of 25 REALLY cause your rates to increase substantially.

I guess OD used her Mom’s address when she got her license, and I guess that’s the address her car is registered to, because I’ve not heard Mister say anything about his insurance rates going up, except for when we bought the Tahoe recently. That’s something he would normally mention, but since he hasn’t, I’m going to assume the teens’ Mom is paying the increased insurance costs, not ask questions, and keep minding my own business.

[andi9899]

Apr 26, 2022 11:26:05 GMT -5 swamp said:

DS will be eligible to get his learner's permit soon.  He should have his license by the end of the year. 

I called my insurance agent to ask the cost of adding him to our insurance.   I plan on giving him my old van, buying a new one for me, having DS listed as a driver of the old van only, and take collision insurance off the old van.   DS is also an honor student, so he gets that discount. 

$3,500 per year.   

Ouch. 

Holy crap! I don't even pay that for both cars with a 22 yo on my policy. But insurance is way more expensive where you are.

[giramomma]

Yeah. DS got hit by a car while he was biking when he was 14. That soured him on driving for a while.

Here, you also have to go through behind the wheel. It's $500. I did ask that DS contribute to insurance and some gas money, besides paying for behind the wheel.

The kid made 8K at his job last year. He could definitely afford putting 1.5K of that to offset some driving costs. He chose not to.

Despite being fairly busy, we really don't need to give him rides anywhere..maybe 3 times a month...It's a perk of urban living. Most of his life is within a 1-2 mile radius of home. It's close enough he can walk or bike to school, work, practice, and weekly magic events. He also gets rides as he wants to from friends..

[NoNamePerson]

Apr 28, 2022 8:42:50 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Yeah. DS got hit by a car while he was biking when he was 14. That soured him on driving for a while.

Here, you also have to go through behind the wheel. It's $500. I did ask that DS contribute to insurance and some gas money, besides paying for behind the wheel.

The kid made 8K at his job last year. He could definitely afford putting 1.5K of that to offset some driving costs. He chose not to.

Despite being fairly busy, we really don't need to give him rides anywhere..maybe 3 times a month...It's a perk of urban living. Most of his life is within a 1-2 mile radius of home. It's close enough he can walk or bike to school, work, practice, and weekly magic events. He also gets rides as he wants to from friends..

I was in car with music teacher and she hit someone. I was around 10 or 11 at the time. Scared me to death about driving. I didn't get my drivers license until I was 22 and pg. I knew I had to do it then for sure. I lived in urban area then so no problem getting around. Got married and moved to urban area also. I was lucky that I could hop a bus to work, walk to the grocery store, drug store, etc from our apartment. Heck, we even had a Hardee's within walking distance (back in the 60's)  I can relate to your DS just in a different story  

[schildi]

We must be lucky here!
Got two teen drivers on my policy now. Rate for went from $650 to $1150 for 6 months. That includes 4 vehicles, and a travel trailer. All with full coverage.

I did have to shop around and switch when I added my two boys, the rate increase with our old insurance was 3x what I ended up with (they wanted $2,500 for 6 months!!!)!

[tractor]

I'm on the other end of the spectrum, both boys have now moved out and I need to have them get their own insurance. Their costs will double (to @ 200/month), but I will save @300/month with them no longer listed on my policy.

They are both coming home this weekend and I plan to pass on the bad news-it's time to "adult"

[minnesotapaintlady]

Oct 26, 2022 23:07:31 GMT -5 schildi said:

We must be lucky here!
Got two teen drivers on my policy now. Rate for went from $650 to $1150 for 6 months. That includes 4 vehicles, and a travel trailer. All with full coverage.

I did have to shop around and switch when I added my two boys, the rate increase with our old insurance was 3x what I ended up with (they wanted $2,500 for 6 months!!!)!

It could just be your location.  Some states are just more expensive to insure teens than others depending on what the laws are there for required coverage.  Swamp is in NY.

 

[tskeeter]

Another consideration in the cost of car insurance for Swamp’s son may be that Swamp might carry high liability coverage.  A provision of many umbrella liability policies is that you carry the maximum liability coverage available on your auto policies.  For us, that’s $300K per incident.  That’s a bunch when you consider that the minimum liability coverage required by some states may be as low as $25K.  Given both Swamp’s occupation and her husband’s occupation, their income would tend to make them lawsuit targets.  So high liability limit insurance would make sense for them.

[schildi]

Yeah, our umbrella also requires us to carry max liability on the auto policy. I think it's $300k also.

[swamp]

Oct 30, 2022 13:35:09 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Another consideration in the cost of car insurance for Swamp’s son may be that Swamp might carry high liability coverage.  A provision of many umbrella liability policies is that you carry the maximum liability coverage available on your auto policies.  For us, that’s $300K per incident.  That’s a bunch when you consider that the minimum liability coverage required by some states may be as low as $25K.  Given both Swamp’s occupation and her husband’s occupation, their income would tend to make them lawsuit targets.  So high liability limit insurance would make sense for them.

Bingo.  

I have $1,000,000 coverage, plus an extra umbrella policy. 

[swamp]

I asked about taking the collision coverage off the van.  It would save us a whopping $150 a year.  We're keeping it.