<p>We currently have Erie, and I’ve been with them 21 years.
I have two teenage sons. One has an accident on his record, and has a speeding ticket that is not on his record. (Found that out today-good news). The other has only been driving 4 months, but so far is clean.
Erie told me today that if any driver has 3 “incidents” in 3 years (ticket and/or accident combination) they will cancel that person from the policy. We do have a benefit that we will never get a surcharge because of an accident. We don’t get a safe driver discounts any longer because of kid 1s accident.
I called geico and nationwide today, and they are both about 800 less than Erie. I didnt get quotes on homeowners, which we also have wit Erie, so not sure how that will come into the equation.
Question is, do others have good car insurance experiences with multiple teens without perfect records?
Should I stay with Erie because I’ve been with them so long so they may be a little more lenient if we do have a problem, or is it really all about the dollars?
Also, when I talked to our Erie agent today about an umbrella policy, she asked if we had any tickets, and I told her my son had 1. Do you think she will put that on our record, even if it’s not on his record? (I’m not sure how I should have answered her question).</p>
<p>We had State Farm for 21 years. After younger son had two very minor fender benders - they refused to cover him any longer - and would not cover him for 3 years! They only paid out $800 on the smaller of the two incidents and we offered to reimburse - no go. So, we went to an insurance broker for help and ended up at The Hartford through AARP. We moved auto insurance and homeowners. It is costing us more - but having younger son not able to drive for 3 years was not an acceptable option. His record has been clean for 2 years now and we will reevaluate insurers once he has 3 clean years.</p>
<p>I found no leniency whatsoever with State Farm despite our 21 year history. </p>
<p>The other thing I learned is to try and avoid filing for a small claim. If I had a do-over, I would have offered to pay the $800 to the other driver’s body shop directly, rather than have her file the claim with our State Farm. He had simply brushed her car door with his bumper in a parking lot. We had no way of anticipating that such a minor incident would result in State Farm cancelling his coverage for 3 years!</p>
<p>I do homeowners insurance, not auto, however with the carriers I work with two or three claims in a three year period and you are out-- the dollar amount of the claim doesn’t matter. That said, except in extreme cases (claims worth multiple tens of thousands of dollars) you don’t get surcharged more for a $5,000 claim than you do a $500 claim. I’d be surprised to learn that isn’t a common practice. I would never file an insurance claim unless you cannot afford to pay out of pocket, use insurance for emergencies not convenience.</p>
<p>Rockvillemom, I’m assuming you are in Maryland like us. It’s certainly frustrating after paying for years that they can just drop you when they have to pay out.
Hopefully our agent won’t record the ticket he got that doesn’t show up on his record, so he still has a little wiggle room.
Any recommendations for carriers that are GOOD with teenage drivers?</p>
<p>I had just switched to Progressive when my D had an accident for which she was ruled “at fault”. The claim was small on the other person’s end- $500 (also a Progressive customer). I thought the insurance would skyrocket the next time. She was offered a chance to take a defensive driving class online and take a test to take the points off of her ticket and she did that. The insurance did not go up with the renewal in July. I just got notice that it is going DOWN about $200 for January’s renewal and I’m shocked. I don’t know if her taking that online class made that difference or not. They do give a discount for good grades, which both of my kids qualify for. I have to send their grades in once or twice a year.</p>
<p>Anyone know what happens to auto insurance for college students once they graduate? DD receives a good student discount, but obviously when not a student any longer, that would disappear.</p>
<p>Good question about graduation. I would venture to guess it will go down. Little simply because of age, but I could be wrong.</p>
<p>1214 - as far as a good carrier - I would recommend who we have now - The Hartford. We had to join AARP ($14) to be eligible.</p>
<p>Graduated students is also complicated - depends on where they are moving to. Rates could go up depending on the location of the car now.</p>
<p>My boys’ carrier left on the good student discount. S1’s also decreased when he turned 25 last year. Back in the day, my H’s went down substantially when we got married. S1 is getting married next June, so we will see.</p>
<p>We have USAA for D’s car in Los Angeles and the rest of our insurance is with a local company in HI. We have an insurance broker in HI but none in CA. We did have Mercury Insurance in CA, which was reasonable but thought we’d try USAA. So far, it’s been OK, but haven’t made any claims yet, just paid in premiums. D had one ticket and has had an accident that we are paying for out of pocket.</p>
<p>Our premiums for H & myself for 3 cars for an entire year costs about $700+, which is what we pay for 6 months for D’s policy. Our insurer will NOT cover cars outside of HI. We have the maximum liability, uninsurance and underinsurance amounts for all of our policies, especially since there are so many driving without any or adequate coverage.</p>
<p>We are paying close to 5k for 3 cars and 4 drivers. My 17 year old drives a car we paid 10k for and the insurance is 2700 a year. (And it’s not any kind of sports car, and he has nothing bad to report so far). Our insurance pre-teen male drivers was less than 1500 per year…</p>