TEENS & CAR INSURANCE
If you have teenagers behind the wheel, you car insurance rates can skyrocket … especially if your teen has accidents. Fortunately, there are proactive steps you can take to control your teen auto insurance costs.
1. Look for discounts. Do your homework. Look for specific ways to help keep your car insurance costs under control without jeopardizing the quality of coverage. These may include teen discounts (including savings for taking driver education classes and maintaining an overall high grade point average); the best way to arrange car and insurance ownership, whether in your name or your teen’s; as well as deductibles and best-choice levels of coverage.
2. Shop around for the right car. The best — and least expensive — approach is often to insist that your teen share one the family’s cars. If you need to add a vehicle, however, the right choice can be a real coin toss. On one hand, picking up an old “beater” can save you money on the purchase price and insurance, especially if you don’t include collision coverage. On the other hand, you want a safe and reliable vehicle, one with all the latest safety features. Possible middle ground: Go for the best deal on an older car, provided it has driver and passenger airbags.
3. Shop around for the best car insurance coverage for the best price. Some insurance companies are much better with discounts. Start by talking to your auto insurance agent and ask for a cost quote.
4. Stress safety. Many teens (especially boys) are fearless. Unless they’ve seen the results first hand of a serious accident, they think driving a car is as safe as playing a video game. Pound the importance of safety into their heads, starting with the fact that texting and talking on cell phones is unsafe (and also illegal in many states).
5. Control use of the car, regardless of whose name it is in. According to information published by the Institute for Youth Development, teen accidents increase dramatically after 10:00 PM. Just as telling, the more teens in the car, the greater the potential for an accident. Stress that an automobile is a valuable and potentially dangerous piece of equipment, not a toy for joyriding. It should be used only for going to specific destinations. Let your child’s friends drive their own cars.
Teens and cars can be a tough call. On one hand, you want your teen to have the freedom of wheels. On the other, you want to keep from going broke on auto insurance premiums. Most of all, you want to keep them safe.
In a few years, they’ll be grown and out of the house … and then your rates will return to a more sane level. In the meantime, consider the above steps to help all of you get through the teen driving years safely and without going broke paying auto insurance premiums. Good luck.
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Want to learn more about how to manage your money and your life? Check out The Back to Basics Book of Money! A Couple’s Guide to Financial Peace. The book contains 10 valuable Couple Money Skills. Plus, the Back to Basics Book of Money Workbook (which dovetails with the main text) offers 31 practical, hands-on Wealth Builder activities that can help you and your partner build financial and domestic stability. Both the book and workbook, which retail for $31.98 plus S & H, are available at the Family Finances Conference Center website for $27.99 total.
The Family Finances Conference Center tailors programs to the unique and individual needs of client organizations and their members and employees, based on the principles of the book and workbook set, The Back to Basics Book of Money! A Couple’s Guide to Financial Peace.
For more information, contact me at the Family Finances Conference Center by email (john@b2bbookofmoney.com) or my direct phone line (920-559-3722).
John Ingrisano
Director
Family Finances Conference Center
204 Lakeview Drive
Algoma, WI 54201
(920) 559-3722
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