If you are a single parent, you probably have to put a lot of thought into your financial security. That's why, when it comes time to insure your teen driver, you might wonder about what is the most cost-effective way to do so? Should you add your teen to a multi-car policy? Or, should you get them their own coverage?
Insuring Drivers And Vehicles
To get the right coverage for your vehicle, you have to ensure that any driver who will get behind the wheel has permission to use it. This includes making sure your children have coverage.
On some policies, your teen driver can use your car because they are automatically covered as a permissive user. Because the teen is a member of your family, your car insurance's limits will cover them whenever they drive a car listed on the policy.
However, there's a catch in some policies, which requires you to make your teen one of the named drivers on the policy. With this requirement, you will need to list the teen — along with such other information as their birth date or driver's license number — on the policy. This will ensure that if the child has a wreck while driving your car, they will have verified coverage.
If you only have one car in the household, then you might only need a single-car insurance policy. If you decide to buy the teen their own car, you might need to change from a single-car policy to a multi-car policy. Multi-car policies allow you to insure more than one car (and multiple drivers) under the same coverage. The teen can still receive coverage on this policy, regardless of which car they drive regularly.
When A Teen Might Need Their Own Coverage
It almost always cheaper and more efficient to add your teen to your existing car insurance than to buy them their own policies. Even though teens are high-risk drivers, which could trigger higher policy costs, this rate increase is usually much less than the price of buying an entirely separate policy.
There are times when a teen driver might need their own car insurance policy, as opposed to sharing yours. For example, if the teen is the title-holder to their car — meaning they, not you, own it — then they might need their own policy. In other cases, if the teen begins to rack up a lot of moving violations, you might need to buy them their own coverage to adequately address their driving needs. Your Automatic Insurance agent is happy to help you choose the right course of action.
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