• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Wealth Pilgrim

No Money Worries. No Matter What.

Neal Frankle featured in
  • Home
  • Life Insurance
  • Investing
    • Build Strong Investment Building Blocks To Avoid Going Broke In Retirement
    • Systematic Mutual Fund and ETF Investing
    • Stock Market Investing Guide
    • Choosing the Right Investment Brokerage Guide
    • How Bonds Work Guide
    • How Banks Really Work Guide
    • Annuities – What You Need To Know Before You Invest
    • A Beginners Guide To Buying Individual Stocks
    • Create A Pool Of Great Mutual Funds and ETFs To Pick From To Secure Your Retirement
    • ETF and Index Fund Investment Guide
  • Earn More
  • Banking
  • Retirement Planning
    • Retirement Guide
  • Ask Neal a Question
  • Reviews
    • Upgrade Personal Loans Review
    • Lending Club Review
    • Prosper Review
    • Ally Invest TradeKing Review
    • CIT Bank Review
    • LegalZoom Review
    • Lexington Law Review
    • Airbnb Host Review
    • Should You Drive For Uber?
  • Tax
  • Courses
    • Raise Your Credit Score So You Can Buy a House – Free Video Course

Cheaper Teenager Car Insurance – 10 Tips to Save You Serious Money

by Ben Cope, The article represents the author's opinion. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure for more info.

If you have a teen who drives, here are a few tips to help you land inexpensive car insurance. Car insurance is high enough for two people in the family – adding a teenager to the pool can send the premium through the roof.

It’s fortunately true that women get car insurance cheaper. It’s also true that young people are automatically charged more. But there are some discounts that you can take advantage of to bring costs down.

Car-related

  • Tip 1: Buy an insurance-affordable car: By this I mean that if you had a choice between a Honda Accord and a Mustang convertible, go for the Honda. It’s as a sweet ride as the convertible, but it will cost less, is safer and much cheaper to insure. Safety wins over sporty in this department.
  • Tip 2: Stick to one car: If you have three cars in the household, decide which car the teenager has access to. Add his/her name only to that car.

You-related

  • Tip 3: Understand what you are buying: If you bought a very cheap car, comprehensive coverage might be unnecessary. You need to have liability insurance for your automobile. But if you don’t care much about your own car, you can probably skip all the extra coverage.
  • Tip 4: Consider the mileage: If your kid is only going to drive the car occasionally and you won’t be driving it much as well, ask for a discount for low mileage. Calculate the mileage as accurately as you can. After you have all the information, it is time to shop around.
  • Tip 5: Shop around: This step is applicable to anyone looking for cheap car insurance. It is always good to shop around every six months to a year.
  • Tip 6: Own policy or add-on: Ask for a quote with both these scenarios – adding junior to your account or getting his/her own insurance. Usually adding him/her to your insurance will be cheaper, but not always. If you had some problem with your credit score and/or you had auto accidents or tickets, it might be worthwhile to get a quote for his/her own policy.
  • Tip 7: Consider a higher deductible: The higher the risk you assume, the lower the premium is going to be. I don’t know if this is worthwhile to do for a very new driver, but at least after the first year you can increase the deductible if you become more confident with your teen driver.
  • Tip 8: Set up automatic payments: Automatic electronic payments sometimes knocks a few dollars off the premium. So does paying the full amount at once. If you have such opportunity, take and make your kid pay you monthly.
  • Tip 9: Help start credit history: If you are confident your child will be responsible, it might be helpful for his future to add him as an authorized user (some cards are good for this as they actually ask for the SSN of the other users, not just the name). A good credit score and history would help him get a good rate when he is on his own. Not just for insurance, but for a lot of other things as well.

Teen-related

  • Tip 10 : Consider the discounts: Students get some pretty sweet discounts, don’t forget to ask the insurance agent about all the discounts your kid might be eligible for:
      • Good student – If she/he maintains a 3.0 GPA, she/he might qualify for a good student discount.
      • Good driver – A common misconception is the rates will magically go down when he is 25. That is not true actually. The rates will gradually go down from 18-25 as long as he doesn’t get into an accident or rack up tickets. So before you give those keys please make sure he is well trained. His training will also get him insurance discounts.
      • Resident student – Will she/he be studying out of town and visiting only during weekends or in summer? Then she/he might qualify for a resident student discount. This is a little gem insurance companies never tell you about.
      • Defensive driver – Did Junior go above and beyond the usual driving school and take defensive driving or any smart ride courses? That would get a sweet discount.
      • Safety features in the car – After all the research you did to find the safest best car for your teen, make sure to mention all the safety features the car has (ABS, air bags, car alarm, etc.).

Have you shopped for car insurance for teens? What tips do you have for us?

Tweet
Pin
Share5

Reader Interactions

User Generated Content (UGC) Disclosure: Please note that the opinions of the commenters are not necessarily the opinions of this site.

Comments

  1. 101 Centavos says

    July 1, 2011 at 3:21 PM

    We have a 15-year who is talking more and more about that magic milestone. It looks like we’ll be passing down one of our vehicles, probably the Mrs’s car. Nice article.

    Reply
    • Neal Frankle says

      July 2, 2011 at 11:04 AM

      I have always recycled our cars to the kids. My goal was to have one car – our 1994 Camry service all the kids. But my wife decided last year (rightly so) it was time to upgrade. Anyway, my youngest is still only 12 so it would have been a stretch. I believe it could have been possible!

      Reply
  2. kelly says

    June 21, 2011 at 3:55 AM

    I’m about to take the plunge myself, as I have a teen who will be getting his license this summer. *Sigh* After a bit of shopping around, it turns out it will indeed be cheaper to add him to my account. I already have a multi-product discount going for me, and adding my child, though painful, is offset a little by the multi-product deal. Thanks for the tips-I will be checking out the good grades discount!

    Reply
    • Neal Frankle says

      June 21, 2011 at 6:43 AM

      Having gone thru this twice already….I feel your pain. But…this might not be a bad time to consider suggesting to your teenager to help out with the insurance by getting a part-time job. This depends on his/her schedule of course but it might be a great opportunity …..and a way to ease the financial burden for you!

      Reply
  3. Neal Frankle says

    June 17, 2011 at 10:53 AM

    You are welcome Ben!

    Reply
  4. bcope says

    June 17, 2011 at 10:15 AM

    Thanks so much for sharing these great tips!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Are You Human? * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

Primary Sidebar

Who is Neal Frankle

Neal Frankle

I'm a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional with more than 25 years of experience. I feel very blessed and hope to share my personal financial experience and professional wisdom with readers of WealthPilgrim.
Read More »

Stay Connected

Facebook Twitter YouTube RSS

More Categories

Career Development
College Funding
Credit Cards
Credit Score Fixes
Money and Marriage
Debt Relief
Estate Protection
Property Investment Loans
Small Business Strategies
Spend Less Money

Most Helpful Posts

  • Term vs Whole Life - Which Is Best For You?
  • Who Should Buy Guaranteed Life Insurance?
  • Is Life Insurance For Children A Good Idea?
  • How To Get The Cheapest Term Life Insurance
  • How To Get Inexpensive Senior Term Life Insurance
  • How To Buy Term Life And Save 70%
  • Do You Need Life Insurance At All? Maybe Not.

Disclaimer

Wealth Pilgrim is not responsible for and does not endorse any advertising, products or resource available from advertisements on this website. Wealth Pilgrim receives compensation from Google for advertising space on this website, but does not control the advertising selection or content. Please do the appropriate research before participating in any third party offers. The information contained in WealthPilgrim.com is for general information or entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice. Please contact an independent financial professional for advice regarding your specific situation. Wealth Pilgrim does not provide investment advisory services and is not a registered investment adviser. Neal may provide advisory services through Wealth Resources Group, a registered investment adviser. Wealth Pilgrim and Wealth Resources Group are affiliated companies. In accordance with FTC guidelines, we state that we have a financial relationship with some of the companies mentioned in this website. This may include receiving payments,access to free products and services for product and service reviews and giveaways. Any references to third party products, rates, or websites are subject to change without notice. We do our best to maintain current information, but due to the rapidly changing environment, some information may have changed since it was published. Please do the appropriate research before participating in any third party offers.


About · Contact · Disclaimer & Privacy policy

Copyright © Wealth Pilgrim 2022 All Rights Reserved