Son will be getting his license soon

[psemmer]

Hello all, I just joined the forum and I'm looking for expert advice on adding my son to my auto insurance policy.

I am currently insured with Progressive and have 6 cars on my policy. I went to Progressive's site last week to get a quote and was horrified to see that adding my son would increase my premiums to over $2000 annually. I knew it would be expensive but wasn't prepared for that much expense. I then took a detailed look and see that they spread the cost across all 6 cars. My son will only be driving 1 car primarily, with the possibility of occasionally driving 2 of the others. Two cars he definitely won't be driving, because they are manual transmission and he does not know how to drive them. The other is my wife's car, which is a Subaru Outback station wagon which he doesn't want to drive.

I haven't spoken to anyone at Progressive yet, since I'm still trying to cope with the sticker shock of the quote, so I was hoping if anyone could tell me if Progressive can exclude him from driving specific cars on my policy, in order to keep premiums down. Has anyone else had a similar situation with Progressive or any other insurance company?

Thanks in advance.
Paul

 

[adjusterjack]

I was hoping if anyone could tell me if Progressive can exclude him from driving specific cars on my policy, in order to keep premiums down.

No.

And even if that were possible, trust me, you don't want him excluded for anything. It's inevitable that one day circumstances will compel him to use one of the excluded cars and that's the day he will have an uninsured accident and the nightmare start. I spent 35 years in the insurance business and all the people who swore up and down that it would never happen, well, it happened.

I then took a detailed look and see that they spread the cost across all 6 cars.

I don't know what you mean by that. Traditionally, a youthful operator was assigned to the highest rated car regardless of what car he uses. That covered him for all the cars. I'm wondering if having a teen aged driver in the household takes you out of the preferred rates and put you into standard rates. That could explain the across-the-board increase. Ask the Progressive agent for an explanation.

Meantime I suggest you start shopping around for rates from other insurance companies. If your family has no tickets/accidents for the last 5 years you might find more competitive insurance companies.

PS: Why do you have six cars? Who drives what? What are they and how old are they? There might be adjustments you can make that can reduce the premiums.

Bottom line, though, teenage drivers are expensive to insure.

 

[psemmer]

Thanks for your detailed response. I can understand the reasoning for having him insured for all cars on the policy.

Maybe I should have worded it differently instead of "spread the cost across all 6 cars". I should have probably said, "the premiums increased on each car on my policy". I now seem to recall that it wasn't only the liability premiums that increased but the collision as well. I guess that's because of the higher risk? I've been with Progressive for a long time and have Emerald status, no at-fault accidents and no tickets, exceptional credit score, etc. so I don't think that shopping around will give me any better rates than I have now. Even if I were to find anything lower, I don't think it would be from any of the major insurance companies that I'd find a better rate. I would rather pay more for quality service from a major insurance company in case I did have an accident, than have to deal with some insurance company that I've never heard of. My wife was hit several years ago and the service from Progressive was top-notch. Other than having to pick up my car from their facility after it was repaired, I didn't have to do much of anything. I didn't even have to pay my deductible, since it was the other driver's fault and their insurance paid for it. In other words, you get what you pay for. I wouldn't want to take a chance that an insurance company that wasn't Progressive, GEICO, Allstate, etc. would give me a hassle when it came to having to pay to repair my car. Besides that, I'd rather not go through the hassle of having to switch insurance companies and starting off at the bottom of the totem pole once again.

As to why do I have 6 cars? I am a car guy and generally do not sell my cars or trade them in. My oldest car is 28 years old, which was my first brand new car, but I only have liability on that one. None of my cars are anything exceptional, like sports cars or exotics, just mainly 4-door sedans, a wagon and two 2-door coupes. Actually, I have 7 cars, one of them is an Olds that I bought back in 1985, which I am currently restoring. Several cars don't even get driven that often, but that's just normal when having so many cars. Unfortunately, Progressive doesn't give low-mileage discounts unless you use their Snapshot device, which wouldn't work on my 28 year old car since it doesn't have OBD2. I've played around in the past with increasing my deductibles and dropping full coverage on some of my older cars, but it really didn't make such a significant difference at the time, that I figured just leave it on. I may have to revisit that.

My son will have to get a job real soon!

Regards,
Paul

 

[VolAgent]

There are lots of great companies with bigger customer service and claims budgets than advertising. But whatever floats your boat.

Yes, the majority of accidents don't involve much in the way of injuries, it is the damage to the vehicles. And there are plenty of one vehicle accidents. So yes, collision is what is going to drive the premium on the vast majority of auto insurance policies.

The statistics on teen drivers and accidents is truly breath taking. Also, I highly recommend you review your liability limits. While accidents with serious injuries are rarer, those are the ones that are truly devastating. As the parent, the other party will come looking at you and your assets should damages exceed your policy limits. And as you mentioned, it is the cheaper part of the policy too.

 

[psemmer]

There are lots of great companies with bigger customer service and claims budgets than advertising. But whatever floats your boat.

I'm sure there are, but since there are so many insurance companies out there, I don't have the time nor the motivation to do the research. I'm sure the savings wouldn't be that significant to justify the time and effort. I'm sure the premium to cover a teen driver will be significant and saving a couple of hundred annually is not going to break my budget.

The statistics on teen drivers and accidents is truly breath taking. Also, I highly recommend you review your liability limits. While accidents with serious injuries are rarer, those are the ones that are truly devastating. As the parent, the other party will come looking at you and your assets should damages exceed your policy limits. And as you mentioned, it is the cheaper part of the policy too.

My liability limits are 100,000/300,000 so I think I'm okay. They could perhaps be better, but I would never have anything less, especially being a homeowner.

 

[VolAgent]

I'm sure there are, but since there are so many insurance companies out there, I don't have the time nor the motivation to do the research. I'm sure the savings wouldn't be that significant to justify the time and effort. I'm sure the premium to cover a teen driver will be significant and saving a couple of hundred annually is not going to break my budget.



My liability limits are 100,000/300,000 so I think I'm okay. They could perhaps be better, but I would never have anything less, especially being a homeowner.

I've seen huge savings, as in several hundred a month, for families with a teen driver by changing companies. It really just depends. Every company would love for you to be loyal and not switch. Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it doesn't.

And those limits aren't all that much. I'm sure Jack can tell us about numerous times he handled a claim that easily exceeded 100,000 for one person.

Owning a home, you really should look at 250/500 with an umbrella on top of that. Even higher would be even better. Also the nice thing about higher liability limits is that it allows higher uninsured motorist limits as well. You should also make sure the umbrella includes UIM.

The only thing worse than causing a bad accident is a driver hitting you, injuring you severely and not having enough insurance.

 

[InsCommentary]

If you have 6 cars and your auto premium is less than $2,000, that suggests to me that you might have low liability, uninsured motorist, and medical payments limits, even with only two drivers. When my son got his license, I increased my personal umbrella coverage to $3M.

 

[psemmer]

If you have 6 cars and your auto premium is less than $2,000, that suggests to me that you might have low liability, uninsured motorist, and medical payments limits, even with only two drivers. When my son got his license, I increased my personal umbrella coverage to $3M.

Do you mean annual premium or semi-annual? My 6-month premium is about $2000. Around $4000 annually.

 

[Chazm]

So you’re not happy with your premium but you’re unwilling to even shop for new rates?

What other answer are you looking for?

 

[adjusterjack]

As to why do I have 6 cars? I am a car guy and generally do not sell my cars or trade them in. My oldest car is 28 years old, which was my first brand new car, but I only have liability on that one. None of my cars are anything exceptional, like sports cars or exotics, just mainly 4-door sedans, a wagon and two 2-door coupes. Actually, I have 7 cars, one of them is an Olds that I bought back in 1985, which I am currently restoring. Several cars don't even get driven that often, but that's just normal when having so many cars.

I am a car guy, too. And there are ways to reduce your costs on the older vehicles. There are collector car insurance companies that will insure them based on limited hobby use at ridiculously low premiums. They don't have to be anything exceptional. People are collecting sedans, wagons, and coupes from the 1980s, even a bit into the 1990s. You can insure them for an agreed value a few thousand dollars each plus liability insurance and probably pay a couple of hundred a year for full coverage on 3 or 4 cars. There is even a company that will insure a car that is undergoing restoration.

There won't be any surcharge for a teen age driver because you'll warrant that nobody under 25 (or with less than 10 years driving) will drive the cars and that each driver in the family has a regular car to drive.

The one requirement that is often an issue with people with several collectibles is that they must be kept in a fully enclosed, locked building when not in use. Not a carport, not in the backyard out in the open.

Do you keep your extra cars in a fully enclosed building?