<p>I am curious about other situations. My son is going away to school and will not have a car. When I contacted my agent, she indicated that this would reduce my insurance by $20 a month. For some reason, I thought the reduction would be higher than that. Is this the norm?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>It is more than that for us but I guess it depends on your policy and what kind of coverage you have. Also we don’t pay monthly, when a new policy come after the removal, ours would list the cost for each type of coverage (collision, property damage, bodily harms, etc…) and you can actually compare it to the old policy.</p>
<p>How about when your kid was added to your policy when he started to drive, how much did it go up by?</p>
<p>It went up by about $150 a month. That’s why I thought there might be a bit more of a reduction.</p>
<p>We exclude our kids from the policy when they went off to college and have to include them back in when they come back for the summer or even for Christmas break. The cost go up and then down as we make the changes during the year. I am not sure how yours work, but does $20 less a month assume that they can still occasionally drive the car during the year?</p>
<p>Yes. I asked to have him listed as an occasional driver. I guess I need to remove him completely to see a more significant savings.</p>
<p>Yes, if they will let you remove and add as you please over time, that might be the most economical. For us, I have to send an email to add, then I have to sign a form and fax it in when I want to exclude.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. I hope they will let me remove him as every dollar saved helps! :)</p>
<p>The bill would be cheaper too if you pay annually instead of monthly. For example, you pay a total of $1200 per year if you do a monthly payment and if you pay the annual amount upfront, it will cost you $1170. The annual payment saves you $30. If you put that $1170 in a bank for one year, which bank right now will give you a $30 interest?</p>
<p>I wish I could get the “away at school” discount, but our insurance company requires the school to be 100 miles away and S1 is only 50 miles away.</p>
<p>^Maybe get a different insurance? When we exclude our kids from the policy, it is clearly stated that all claims will be denied if the car gets into an accidents with any of the kids as the operator. Why should you be paying for something that you do not or never have any intentions of using?</p>
<p>They were excluded for being >100 miles away at school for more than 1/2 of the policy period. We were not required to add them back on for breaks, they were considered guest drivers for those periods.
After graduation, we could not get kids excluded from our policy, even if they weren’t driving, if their legal residence remained the home address UNLESS we could show they owned a vehicle and insured it independently.</p>
<p>My concern would be how sure are you that your kid would never, under any circumstances, get behind the wheel of a car? Even if a sick friend, designated driver or any other “emergency” arises? While the car owners policy should cover damages to its limits, what if the damages are more than the coverage? Your kid will be sued with no indemnification and no legal defense! Ludgements live for 20 or more years. Parents need to carefully evaluate the risks and resist the urge to be “penny wise and pound foolish”.</p>
<p>For my policy the discount was based upon the distance to the school - so maybe that is why it is only $20 a month.</p>
<p>As I understand it, when my kids drive someone else’s car, the insurance on the other car covers for their accidents and damages. Moreover, they cannot rent a car because they are not over 21, and they can buy separate insurance if they rent a car. If you want to have some sort of umbrella coverage which we have, that is a different matter entirely. But when they are home, we put them back onto the policy right away. It is not very difficult to understand, you pay for what you get. It is up to you what level of over-coverage you want to have, the insurance company won’t mind getting more money either.</p>
<p>"For my policy the discount was based upon the distance to the school - so maybe that is why it is only $20 a month. "</p>
<p>Is that a regulated rule, or is it policy offered by certain insurance and it could be different from one company to the next?</p>
<p>GEICO is VERY good about this. Both of our kids are far away at school.When GEICO was informed of this when each started college (that they were at college far away and only home at winter and spring breaks and possibly during the summer) our rate went down considerably. No need to put them back on the policy when they come home. their names are listed on our policy documents. When one of them was renting a car over spring break, I called GEICO to see if our policy would cover the rental car and they said that it would. I also mentioned at that time that one was going to be doing an internship in CA this summer and might need to rent a car for the summer. THe GEICO rep said that she would be covered on the rental car, and as long as the rental period was less than 3months there would be no additional charge to us.
Awesome!</p>
<p>Okay, I am definitely going to comparison shop. My son will be in Connecticut and we live in Colorado. Not like he will popping home for the weekend.</p>
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<p>This is my understanding also. Both the driver and the owner of the car are liable in an accident and both can be sued. Driving is probably the biggest liability that anyone takes in daily life. It is not worth taking the risk unless you are absolutely sure.</p>
<p>I need to look it up. I think our insurance went down 20-30% when S1 went away to college several hundred miles away without a car. We paid every 6 months. $20 a month is $120 for 6 months. That seems to be about how much savings we got.</p>
<p>I think who can be sued for what really depends on what state you are in. Our state has no fault auto insurance so none of that applies. </p>
<p>For me, with Progressive and Citizens both, they gave my D a distant driver status because her school was more than 100 miles away. Of course, she got in an accident during her spring break. Our rates didn’t go up as much as I feared, perhaps because she is the distant driver…</p>
<p>We get a better deal because son’s college is more than 200 miles from home. But he is covered when home for breaks. I can’t tell how much discount, but I do not the good student advantage was negligible.</p>