How to Save Money on Teenage Driver Auto Insurance

Every parent dreads the day their child starts driving. As if it's not scary enough worrying about your teen driver, you also have to add your child onto your insurance policy only to watch your rates sky rocket because they are inexperienced. However, this doesn't have to be such a difficult process. If you know the right questions to ask and the right answers to provide it could save you hundreds of dollars a year on your auto insurance policy.

The first thing to remember is that your auto insurance representative isn't really a mean, horrible person who wants all of your money. They are required to rate your auto policy properly for the risk that it entails. When you call to add a youthful driver you need to have your answers and questions prepared ahead of time, because a lot of times your insurance agent or representative isn't allowed to tell you things like what car to rate your child on to save more money. They are required to rate your child on whatever car they drive the majority of the time. You also don't want to provide answers like, "they won't be driving" or "I don't know" because not being specific could cost you more money.

You can avoid this situation as long as you are prepared. Before calling your insurance agent you need to read through auto policy. You need to review it to determine which car will cheapest and which car is the most expensive. The trick is we aren't going to be looking at the current pricing of the vehicles, but instead the rating of the vehicles. You want to look at what's called the vehicle symbol. These symbols are numbers that the auto industry uses to rate each vehicle type. They then provide them to the insurance companies to help the insurance companies rate their policies properly. Once you find the symbol, determining what it means is simple. The lower the number the cheaper the cost of your insurance on that vehicle. Choose the vehicle with the lowest number and that will be the answer when your auto insurance agent asks, "what vehicle will your child be driving?" Remember, if you have the same number of vehicles that you do drivers then each person will have to be assigned to a vehicle as a primary driver. That's why it's important to know which vehicle has the lowest rating. You need to assign the person with the highest risk (your teenage driver) to this vehicle. If you have less vehicles than drivers, it's a little bit easier. You're teen driver will then be considered an "occasional" driver, but you still want him/her to be rated on the vehicle with the lowest symbol.

Depending on your family's needs, you can also look at the age of the vehicles. If there are any vehicles that are old enough to carry only liability insurance on, then you should make sure they only have liability coverage. This is the only exception to the "symbol" rating process above. If you have a vehicle that has only liability coverage, but its symbol is higher than a car you have fully covered, you will make sure your child is rated on the vehicle with the minimal coverage. The reason for this is that while it may be a higher rated vehicle, for a youthful driver the comprehensive and collision coverage are the most expensive part of the policy. That means if you have a car that's not fully covered, that's the one you will want to rate your highest risk driver on.

You also need to review all of the discounts on your policy. Your child may qualify for numerous discounts. Even though each insurance company has different discounts and they also vary by state, you should be looking for things like a drivers training discount or a good student discount. You also want to make sure that you ask if there are any discounts other drivers on your policy could be taking advantage of. There may be things like a defensive driving course you may be able to take that will give you an additional discount.

Remember, you need to be prepared to make this call. Regardless of who is rated on what vehicle, all of the drivers in your household are covered on whichever one of the vehicles they drive. Why not rate your policy to benefit your bank account instead of your insurance company's?