New, Young Drivers and Car Insurance
Whether your teenagers took driver’s education over the summer or they are enrolling in a program this upcoming school year, you’re likely thinking about a few components of this new adventure. One of those considerations may be the fact that your kids will soon need to have auto insurance on their cars. Before leaping into this plan, consider some important points.
What Policy to Use
As your kids inch closer and closer to owning cars and having greater freedom on the road, you’ll want to decide between procuring them their own policies and adding them to your own policy. Both options can have advantages. If your teenagers have their own policies for car insurance, the payments can be entirely up to them, thereby relieving you of responsibility. Adding your kids to your policy could mean that you get stuck with the bill if they forget to pay. On the other hand, the price could very well come in lower if you add them to your plan instead of having them get their own. You could also bundle all of the car insurance for your household and homeowner’s insurance into one plan, thereby reducing the price even more.
Tracking Safe Driving
While you may already know that the prices for your teenager drivers are likely to be high, you might feel startled as you start to recognize the reality of the situation. Fortunately, understand that ways exist to lower the price of the insurance policy. Encouraging, promoting and teaching safe driving are all crucial. The thought of your children getting into car accidents is likely jarring in terms of safety. On a note of lesser importance, even a minor accident could mean a significant increase in your insurance. Modeling safe driving for your teenagers is imperative. For example, do not use your cell phone or speed when you are driving. Also, some insurance companies offer devices that monitor safe driving habits. If your teenagers have these devices on their cars, you may find that the cost of auto insurance goes down when they maintain a safe level of driving. You should also talk about the physical dangers of driving in an unsafe way. While you don’t necessarily want to terrify your teenagers and make them feel horrified to drive, you should certainly inform them of the potentially deadly realities of unsafe driving.
Other Tips to Save Money
You can find other ways to save money on your insurance policy. As noted, bundling policies for all of your properties and vehicles together can assist in bringing down the costs. Furthermore, you should ask about how affiliations can help to lower the costs. For example, some insurance policies will allow students or employees of certain universities to receive a reduced rate. As your teenagers might be preparing to start or return to college soon, this type of plan can seem quite enticing. Also, some insurance companies will lower the rate if your kids have good grades. Different companies are going to have varying policies. If your kids are paying for their own insurance policies, knowing that the price can go down with good grades is an additional motivator for them to increase their study habits and to do well in school.
Knowing that your teenagers are going to be on the road soon can feel a bit overwhelming in more ways than one. What you should try to do is reduce the anxieties for your family and decrease the effects of any major roadblocks. Learning about ways to cut back on the costs of insurance can help everyone to feel at least a bit more relaxed about this new stage of life.
