Family of 4 has 3 cars, primary driver on each is an adult. Fourth family member turns 16 soon and is extra $1800/year to add to policy. BUT, if we get a fourth car, that goes up to $4800. Ouch. The reason is that he must be listed as the primary driver since we no longer have n-1 cars (it will be 4 cars for 4 drivers instead of 3 for 4).
No accidents on record, grades are great, just the cost of a young driver as primary on a new car.
This is outrageous. Other then buying a clunker so there’s no comp or collision, how do we get around this primary driver thing?
I have no clue where you’re located, but being a young driver (just turned 21) I compared prices on insurance for my family and got insanely different outcomes. Geico and Progressive were by far the cheapest for 3 years and 3 drivers. Our current provider, NJM, wasn’t that much more and due to a claim, we are going to stay with them until that falls off my father’s history. We thought about moving me to my own Geico policy because that’s cheaper, but until I get a new car, we will probably keep it all on one policy. Liberty Mutual, State Farm, Esurance, Farmers and whatever the Teacher’s one is were way way more expensive. Just get a bunch of quotes and start from there
Did you ask about the ways you can lower it? I know State Farm has the Steer Clear class that teens can take to lower the premium as well as a good student discount.
Ok, there are a few reasons for some crazy quotes when it comes to having teen drivers in the house. You need to shop your insurance and question one to ask an insurance company is do they rate the teen drivers on the car they drive or on the most expensive car on the policy. Some insurance companies rate teen drivers on the most expensive cars. It will usually make the quote way higher. So make sure you find a company that will rate each driver on the vehicle they drive. If you only have 3 drivers and 4 vehicles they will rate both teenagers on separate vehicles as primary drivers.
Buying a clunker wont have as big an impact as you would expect. When my teen started driving it was $110/mth extra to add him as a driver (with 2 cars) and insurance went up to $250/mth extra when we acquired a 2003 Honda for him to drive (with no collision on it). It costs more to insure him on that old Honda than to insure my wife and I on our newer vehicles combined. He has been driving for more than a year, so we just had a rate decrease. Unfortunately, we live in a state where none of the typical rate reduction things apply - good grades, safe driver, take a defensive driving class, etc. I didn’t shop around much (got some anonymous quotes online which were much higher and compared costs with what co-workers were paying) and were content to stay, at least for now.
either liability only or i agree that gieco is the cheapest for young people. mine at 21 was 220 full coverage at gieco with a 55k car. after a accident it became 300 but its still better than what others were wanting me to pay.
Geico isn’t always the cheapest. It wasn’t for me. Someone else mentioned State Farm. I could’ve leased a fully loaded x3 for what they wanted to gouge me for a month.
Everyone’s situation is different. Everyone’s coverages are different. Everyone’s cars are different. Bottom line, the only thing you can do is shop around. Throwing out blanket statements like “Geico is the cheapest” isn’t always correct for everyone.
You could ask 50 people, and many of those people would give you a different reply/opinion. It’s really fruitless.
your absolutely correct it could be different for everyone so instead of saying gieco is the cheapest i should’ve said it’s cheaper for the majority. I myself have gone to state farm(which my friend works at) and to other places like progressive, liberty mutual, all state…ect and you wouldn’t believe that they wanted 500-600 a month from me for full coverage. especially liberty mutual they’re not fond of younger drivers, they quoted my at 670 a month
Well that’s what it’s gonna take, sedatives and blood pressure pills. I’ll make some calls but the bottom line is we had n-1 cars and our kid never had to be the primary driver. Now with n cars planned, we are stuck with high liability costs, clunker or not.
Or Uber
Or you can just swap cars as necessary and stay with 3 cars. I didn’t have a vehicle until I was 22 (which presented some challenges as I didn’t live in a metro area, but I figured it out). [I think Uber has a minimum rider age of 18]
That’s the way insurance works. If you have 2 cars and 3 drivers, insurance won’t make him the primary on a car, as there’s not enough cars in the house to primary drivers. Once you get the extra car, he’s assumed to be the primary driver for it, as you now have an equal number of cars as you do drivers. It’s worked this way for years. Same thing happened when I turned 16 25 years ago.
