how much does car insurance cost for a new teen driver?

[MrsPete]

The cost was awful:

My husband and I were insuring two cars and a house for X.
When our oldest turned 16 we added a third car to the driveway, and our insurance went up to 2.25X.

Outrageous.

 

[DisneyTexan]

my agent and I played around with who was listed as primary driver on each car to get the best rate possible.

I skimmed through all the posts expecting someone to mention this. If you have a low-value car, the newest driver should be listed as the primary driver on that car. The new driver can still drive any of the cars in the household. This will help a little with the rate.

 

[Eureka]

I think so. I think there was a small drop in price when DS turned 18 and an even bigger drop when he turned 21.

We did not notice any change when DS20 turned 18.

 

[TwoMisfits]

So, just wondering if your kids wait until 18 to get licenses, is the insurance lower? At this time, our 16.5 year old son could technically have his license already, but we are waiting due to general immaturity (he is autistic ). In our state, if you wait until 17.5 to get a permit, you can have anyone teach you to drive, rather than requiring a certified driver training school (my son will do better learning from me than a stranger). I'm just wondering how insurance rates will be at that point.

I think many don't really discount til 25 OR til X number of years of good driving...so 17 vs 18 won't matter much. Mine told me all new drivers have a "3 year surcharge", which falls off if they drive well after 3 years, and then they get much cheaper...which will be around the time I'm adding my next young driver, so there's that...

 

[havaneselover]

I skimmed through all the posts expecting someone to mention this. If you have a low-value car, the newest driver should be listed as the primary driver on that car. The new driver can still drive any of the cars in the household. This will help a little with the rate.

I think some companies don’t allow this. Regardless my daughter’s car is worth twice what mine is but I list her as the primary driver of her car because that’s the car she actually drives.

 

[chattadisser]

I think some companies don’t allow this. Regardless my daughter’s car is worth twice what mine is but I list her as the primary driver of her car because that’s the car she actually drives.

This may vary from state to state as well. I was actually on the phone Friday with my State Farm rep and asked this question. For where we are my DD would be insured based on the car that she would be the primary of, regardless of who had the newer car. I'm not planning on getting her a new car but I also know sometimes a used car isn't much savings over new, just depends.

This is a good thread because at least having a ballpark figure of 2X what we are currently paying will help with the budgeting.

 

[irazabul]

Anyone from Texas on here that knows about the new "non-specified" driver insurance rules? Something about insurers no longer allowed to specify who can drive the car, and that the car is what is insured and not any specific driver within your household.

 

[sksjasams]

We have Progressive and they do not assign drivers to particular cars. When DS started driving, our rates pretty much doubled. Then the longer he had his license, the rates gradually started coming back down.

 

[DLgal]

Anyone from Texas on here that knows about the new "non-specified" driver insurance rules? Something about insurers no longer allowed to specify who can drive the car, and that the car is what is insured and not any specific driver within your household.

Actually, now that you mention it, that is how our insurance is set up. It's by vehicle VIN. We do have to assign primary drivers to each car on our policy, but the premiums are priced based on the coverage for each car. It's USAA insurance which I know is Texas based. We don't live in TX though.

 

[Lynne G]

Yep, and my DS is more expensive than DD. My insurance is three times more with a now 19 and 23 year old. Was told, DS would go down much more in price when he’s 25. I’m hoping DS gets his own insurance one of these days. And DD we’ve been paying for since 16, DS at least waited until he was 18.

 

[barkley]

So, just wondering if your kids wait until 18 to get licenses, is the insurance lower? At this time, our 16.5 year old son could technically have his license already, but we are waiting due to general immaturity (he is autistic )

when dd was nearing 16 i checked with our agent-there was a significant difference in premiums on adding her as a 16 year old/new license vs. 18 year old/new license. we waited.

w/our younger son (also on the spectrum) he will soon be 24 and we've not let him get a license. even if he were to never use it our premiums would substantially increase, and the reality for him is that he doesn't have certain skills such that dh or i feel it would be safe for him to drive.

 

[nat8199]

I have two young male drivers (17 and just turned 20). We have four drivers total, three cars (newest is 2015) with full coverage and we pay over $600 a month. And that’s with the “good student” discount. It’s going to vary of course based on your car, area and insurance company but it’s going to be a big jump from what you‘re paying now. When we added my first DS, he was 17 and our monthly payment doubled.

OMG. I am going to have three teen drivers at once (DD is only 18mo older than twins) and that is going to kill our budget!!

 

[jccarney]

Mine went from $79 month (single female driver) to $245 month when I added my teen son as a driver.

 

[mjkacmom]

OMG. I am going to have three teen drivers at once (DD is only 18mo older than twins) and that is going to kill our budget!!

Yes it will, at one point we had 5. Ds22 finally got his own when he bought his own car, but dd24 is still on ours only because it’s impossible to get into the DMV in NJ.

 

[mjkacmom]

I just checked, we pay $7000 a year for 6 people, 4 vehicles, only the 2016 has collisio, the others are 15 year old cars.

 

[nene0182]

I honestly have no idea how much our insurance increased since we switched insurance companies and added a new vehicle not long after my son got his license at 15 (he’s almost 18 now) I do know however that we pay about $320/month and that includes full coverage on 3 vehicles (2015,2019, and 2019) which I think is pretty reasonable. Reading the replies above, I’m noticing it definitely varies based on your area.

 

[Music City Mama]

When DS turned 16 and got added to our policy, he didn't have a car yet, so we just added him as a driver. It was about $50/month. We have State Farm and got a discount because he completed driver's ed and because he had a "good student" discount.

When he got a car a few months later (an old Honda Accord hand-me-down from his grandfather), it added about another $50/month (that policy doesn't include collision). So DS plus his car costs us about $100/month. State Farm will "assign" your teen the car that comes out the cheapest for you.

 

[clori]

While my info is a bit outdated my daughter and a family friend's son both got their license at about the same time at age 16. We live in the same state and neither had their own car. Ours went up about $1200 and my friend's insurance went about about $2400. I don't know if it was a different city on opposite sides of the state, insurance company itself, based on type of car already insured or perhaps gender based. I was told with a good record anticipate a discount a 21 then again at 25.

Discounts to ask about:
1. discount for driver's ed (yes even if it is mandatory to take driver's ed under 18 to get a license)
2 discount for good student
3 discount for non principal driver

Also when starting college if residential and no car ask if there is a discount for that

 

[SandyinMonterey]

We have All State. My daughter just got her permit a couple of months ago and my All State agent said the same thing, no coverage required until she gets her license." I asked how much our insurance will go up when it comes time to insure her, his response was "sgnificantly." I think he may have even said 100%. He said teen drivers are the worse and most costly to insure. I'm expecting it to be very, very high. We have multiple policies with All State (even with Liberty Mutual before that) including an umbrella policy. We will have our daughter take a driver education course and I'm sure there's some discount with that. But the discounts with muliple polices and driver's ed really aren't significant in savings amount.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

We used zebra.com and found a rate that was better than the rest..
A lot of factors.. what kind of car/motor, sex, where you live etc.

My agent said anyone in the house with a permit or above has to be on the policy
My boys was were stupid expensive.. we had full coverage in Texas 1000 deduct 450 a month. Or 250 liability only..
We ended up not letting them drive our cars and getting them there own policy