<p>I am a Michigan resident, and I went to undergrad out of state (more than 100 miles). As a result, my parents’ auto insurance decreased dramatically ($1000+ savings). If I had stayed in Michigan, our auto insurance would have been high. The state of Michigan really needs to reform its auto insurance policy. The industry has too much power/influence.</p>
<p>California resident here who gets insurance from State Farm. D got her DL right after high school graduation and then went away that fall to college across the country where she had no car. </p>
<p>She wasn’t required to get insurance just because she had a license. We didn’t have to put her on our policy. When she came home from school for holidays and drove the car, our insurance company said that she was covered as an occasional driver under our policy.</p>
<p>Looks like there’s a lot of variables in this kind of situation. I had no idea it was so complicated.</p>
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SIL in MA did exactly this with her S when he went to college. Worked like a charm. When our D went off to School in NC (we’re in CT), I wanted to do the same. We have Amica. No dice – they don’t allow it. She gets good student discount + “away (over x miles) at school discount.” but we still have to pay. When S went to school last fall, we got no break at all (except good student) since he’s within the mileage limit. Added to the fact that rates for young men are higher anyway, and we’re just plain paying a lot.</p>
<p>Insurance is a very competitive industry. If you don’t like the answer you get from the company you have, get new quotes. If you don’t want to do it yourself, have an independent agent do it for you. Ours keeps my rates low by checking around whenever the company starts to raise them.</p>
<p>S got his license at 18, right before he left for college. Our insurance was going to go up $517 per 1/2 year, and that was after $219 off for the driver training discount, good student discount, and occasional driver discount (even though S is only 42 miles away). Instead, we dropped collision coverage since the trade-in value of both cars combined is less than $4000, so now we’re only paying $20 more.</p>
<p>Wow! Massachusetts actually seems to have reasonable car insurance regulations? Who’d have thought??</p>
<p>We also took our d off our policy when she went 400 miles away to school without a car. We & she had a sign a form recognizing that she would not be insured by our company for ANY car that she drove, so she agreed not to drive anyone’s car. Then when she came back and would drive again, a simple call put her back on our policy.</p>
<p>I asked Amica when we could remove our son from our policy, and they said our son would have to have a permanent mailing address that wasn’t our house. (His school address doesn’t count, as he’s only there during the school year.) He would have to change the address with the Division of Motor Vehicles, who they get their list from. If my son had a different address on the Division of Motor Vehicle list, then we wouldn’t have to pay for him.</p>
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So true. We thought about switching our policy from Progressive to the company we have our homeowner’s insurance with. The other insurance company’s agent told us we would be required to list our son on the auto policy. No dice - we’ll stay with Progressive, thank you.</p>
<p>I did a quit & dirty google search and it seems that you do not need to have insurance just because you have a driver’s license in Michigan. Unless Amica can point out to you anything different, I wouldn’t put your D on your policy.</p>
<p>I would check with Geico. We have Geico for auto. We live in CA, son is in school in MA. They allowed us to drop him from our insurance and we do not pay any premium for him but he is covered under an occassional driver clause any time he comes home. He has continued to maintain his CA driver license for the four years he has been in school.<br>
Check Geico and Progressive for sure.</p>
<p>That is interesting about Geico. We have Kemper and have been told we need to keep our kids on our policy if they are going to be driving our cars. That they would not be covered under an occasional driver clause. We could take them off and add them back on but my H is concerned about them driving a car at school that the owner does not have insurance. Plus my son has a car he just doesn’t have it with his at college.
We did remove our D who is at school back east. She has a car in her own name and she now carries auto insurance in that state even while maintaining a Ca drivers license.</p>
<p>Another one here, in Wisconsin, with kids covered under ‘occasional’ drivers clause. The company gave me a hard time about the one D who goes to an instate school, though when I complained that she is home no more frequently than the out of state D, they stopped charging me. But a previous agent did charge me for the instate student. </p>
<p>I’ve been with the same company for years, and they’ve treated me well. But was shocked at how much lower the Geico quote was for my son with his new wheels.</p>
<p>Be beware. Geico plays a game when quoting new auto policies. Unless you ask the question directly, they won’t tell you the 12 month quote they give you is subject to a reevaluation after only 3 or 6 months. Always ask if the 12 month rate is locked-in for the full 12 months.</p>
<p>My D has Geico for her individual policy. It was the best price we could get. It was for a 12 month period. One thing is you have to watch them. When my H got the last premium bill the good student discount was missing. He had to make a few phone calls. There excuse was no excuse. Basically don’t know how that happened but we will fix it immediately. Pays to pay attention to your bill.</p>
<p>Very interesting! Thanks. Will warn S about future bills.</p>
<p>WA resident and family is insured by Farmers. Agent said that if a student was over 250 (or 500, I don’t remember which) miles away and didn’t have a car at school, they would be charged the married and under 25 rate when in school and the full rate on breaks. Needless to say, I don’t have a license because of this. Of course, I noticed that both states (WA and AL) only require insurance on the car, not the driver. WA also exempts vehicles that are over 30 years old, so that is an option.</p>
<p>Just a FYI - our kids ARE listed on our Geico policy and are named on the “proof of insurance” paper that they send twice a year. There just isn’t a charge for them. DD isn’t even a student anymore, but I told them that she lives abroad (she does), and they still have her listed on the policy for free.</p>
<p>Wow! We look forward to our sons freshman year in college because we get a little relief on insurance. As soon as we drop them off we notify the insurance that they will not be driving our cars and our insurance goes down. We have AAA and are in CA. We’ve sent 3 drivers to college with no car their frosh year and they were considered guest drivers if they were at home for 2 weeks or less. If they were home longer like during the summer we had to add them back to our policy but it was at prorated rate.</p>
<p>Honestly…it’s a racket. DD is 3000 miles away at college. In 2009, she was home for a rousing…3 weeks. Yes…we got an “away at school discount” but really…we paid a lot for her coverage for three weeks of driving. We were told that she had to be insured in our state. Oh well.</p>
<p>We now only have three cars…and four drivers (DS is also on our policy…they told us we can carry him as long as we feel like paying the bill). Dropping that fourth car gave us a much larger savings than that “away at school discount”. </p>
<p>Oh…did I also add that DS (when an undergrad) wasn’t home more than 12 weeks a year?</p>
<p>Just coming back to thank everyone for all the input on car insurance strategies. What we ended up having to do was have my d turn in her MI license and get one in PA where she goes to school. Once she was no longer licensed in our state and at our home address we were not required to have her on our insurance.<br>
She was happy to save us $750 - $1000 and promptly asked to go on a trip for spring break.</p>