<p>My son’s 1999 Volvo with no collision is more than my husband’s 2011 Volvo. </p>
<p>We dropped collision and have a higher deductible.</p>
<p>I’d try getting a quote from some other companies. This sounds outrageous. Although we are in a rural area, we are in a state that does not have the lowest rates. However, when S2 went off to NY state with a car his sophomore year, the premium increase was over $1000. But it didn’t change on the other two cars.</p>
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Then it sounds like your agent is pulling some hanky panky with the insurance company to keep your business. I would not be comfortable with this situation, and would at least check with other agents or other insurance companies to see if your son can be deemed an “occasional” driver when he’s the only one with access to the vehicle. The issue may not have come up in the case of a minor claim, but if, God forbid, your son is involved is a serious accident with significant medical expenses, that’s when the insurer will take a long, hard look at the circumstances. I note that on its website, Progressive, for example, defines things this way: “A person who is not the primary or principal driver of the insured vehicle is an occasional driver.” I suspect that definition applies across the board.</p>
<p>^Thank you for your opinion.</p>
<p>We live close to Boston. Full coverage for my 3yo car and H’s 10 yo car was about 2K. When S got his license it cost 2.2K to fully insure his 2 yo car. Car is registered under my name but with him listed as primary driver. If car was registered under his name insurance would have been over 3K.</p>
<p>OK, I called GEICO and did get the premium down from $5,100 to $3,800. I got rid of the uninsured and med pay items. Also, I found that I have high limits on BI, prop, and PIP because my car is a leased car and the limits are required by Nissan. These I cannot change and they apply to all of the 3 vehicles on the family policy. We have good credit and no accidents or tickets. My daughter also qualifies for the good student driver discount. I see some people say that they have their kids listed as occasional drivers. I don’t know if that varies by state, but that doesn’t seem to be an option here. Here’s what happened to our policy: My H has a 2007 Ford Explorer. His premium was $768 before I added my daughter, and now it’s $1,639 (even though I said she would never be using his vehicle). My premium on the 2013 leased Nissan Altima was $848 and is now $1,785 (even though I said she would never be using my vehicle). We are getting her a car, a 2005 Mazda 3. It is going to cost $1,695 for the year. The insurance companies I called today said that the premiums go up on any vehicle registered to the family. The only way around this would be to get my daughter her own policy, which at 17 would cost a fortune (even more of a fortune than I’m currently being quoted). I mentioned that my husband is living 250 miles away because he lost his job and relocated. I thought that would save us the almost $900 increase in premium on his vehicle … shot myself in the foot because it not only didn’t negate the $900 increase, but added another $415 to his premium because he is now living in an area with higher premiums! Because we’re still married and I’m living here (even though he’s only here 4 days out of the month), he is still somehow connected to this house and has to pay the increase in premium because my daughter could theoretically take his keys and take his beast of a vehicle for a joy ride. Crazy! I hate insurance companies!!</p>
<p>When my older son started driving (a 2010 Mazda 3, very base model), his car insurance, with good student discount, was initially a little over $1,800/year. he had a very low speed collision, and it went up to over $2,400, and somewhere in there ours went up substantially also, to close to double what it had been. His school is several states away, and we saved a couple hundred bucks… Did I mention he was only home for major holidays? Considered canceling him from our policy while he was away, but posts here on CC kept me from doing that. When he turned 19 it did go down significantly, but now I get to pay through the nose again, because my younger son just got his license. I’ve had Erie for years, but I may try Geico.</p>
<p>I’d strongly encourage you to call a few other insurance companies. </p>
<p>When our son was ready to get his permit, we called our insurance co and asked what the rate hike would be. After about passing out from her quote (I think we have the highest auto insurance for teenage boys of all the states), we asked other friends who have teenage boys who they insure with. That gave us the names of companies and agents to call. </p>
<p>That exercise was well worth our time. We did end up switching and got a better policy with better coverage for less. We didn’t expect such success but were thrilled with it. That said,we still pay more than many of you here, but that’s all part of the cost of living in this state. Sigh.</p>
<p>"he had a very low speed collision, and it went up to over $2,400, and somewhere in there ours went up substantially also, to close to double what it had been. His school is several states away, and we saved a couple hundred bucks… "</p>
<p>Gosh, my son has already had two minor accidents - one when he only had his license for a few months and then the one in the parking lot this year and my premium wasn’t increased at all.</p>
<p>With our insurance, once we had an equal number of cars and drivers, we had to name who drove what car and that is how our rates were determined.</p>
<p>A couple of things, does it help much to raise your deductible?</p>
<p>Another thing, can you buy a separate policy (if it’s cost effective) with the same company for your husband’s car? We have 3 cars in Washington, and one in Tennessee. Both Geico and USAA said that we had to have a separate policy because the other car was located in another state (it is also licensed in that state). More expensive that way, with no additional vehicle discount, but the kids are not listed on that policy, nor are they forced to be, plus we can make whatever adjustments to the policy we like, separate of the other cars. In fact, our son had an internship in TN and drove the car for awhile. When I called Geico to see if he needed to be listed as a driver on that policy, they said, no he’s not driving it that long, so not necessary.</p>
<p>One last thing to consider, if you’re looking at Geico, did you go online and get their quote…or talk to someone on the phone? I wonder if the quotes would match? I got our quotes online, and they stuck to it, no changes, when we switched.</p>
<p>It does help to raise your deductible, but I cannot give you numbers because I did not pay that much attention. We are USAA lemmings and we just pay them what they tell us. My husband has been a member for 40 years next year.</p>
<p>MD Mom, we were also USAA lemmings for over 25 years, and would have stayed that way until they totally messed with us. Sent us a letter saying that our home, that we’d bought five years earlier, now was going to cost 700K more to rebuild, forcing our property insurance up massively. Of course, that wasn’t true, building costs hadn’t gone up at all, in fact, labor costs were down.</p>
<p>When I disputed it, I got some young lady trying to aggressively tell me that, “Oh yes, building costs in your area have gone way up.” They had priced the rebuilding costs as if we had the most custom house around, including basement space, which was totally bs. We have a big square, easy to build, older home. So I started looking around.</p>
<p>Armed Forces insured our house for about $2,400 less. Geico cut our rates around 2K. I would have stayed a lemming forever, had they not angered me. And the great thing about leaving is that they sent me that SSA money, finally, for almost 4K!! Only way you get it is to cancel all insurance. I’ve heard they offer you a far better deal to come back. Anyways, my point is, if they annoy you enough, look around.</p>
<p>Wow…I’m shocked at the prices you guys pay!</p>
<p>I pay $250 twice a year with a thousand deductible. So does my husband. We have added no young drivers yet since one is on campus (while in high school) and hasn’t bothered to get a license yet, since no car is allowed there.</p>
<p>Each state can be different and some no-fault states operate differently than others. In MA, an accident does not automatically increase rates. </p>
<p>Two adults, two older cars, two daughters: less than 2k. AAA. Collision only on the younger of the two cars.</p>
<p>When they price (at least, in our case, what I was told,) each adult is assigned a car for pricing purposes. From my perspective, even with Emily’s husband on the reg for son’s car, son is the assigned driver. So, her rate initially doubled.</p>
<p>Busdriver11, we only have USAA for cars and have Armed Forces for the house.</p>
<p>Busdriver, I feel your pain with USAA. They just raised the premium on our homeowner’s policy by 44.5% because of a rate increase! Our premium has doubled in the past 4 years. We have never filed a claim. Our only sin is living within a mile of the coast in south Florida. And this is only the homeowner’s policy – it doesn’t include windstorm coverage or flood. When I add all the premiums together for the three coverages, we pay over $9,000 per year for dwelling insurance. Then we give them another $2700/year for our 2 cars (an 07 Camry and an 03 Accord).</p>
<p>Needless to say, we’ll be moving out of south Florida as soon as H retires. We can’t afford it here anymore.</p>
<p>Another plug for GEICO. Quote took far longer than 15 minutes but we saved way more than 15%. I think we are now paying $3000/year for two new cars & one very old SUV with 16 yr old boy. Prior carrier wanted $7000 and that was with only one new and two old cars. Probably should have looked into GEICO years ago but I think we only paid $1500/yr previously.</p>
<p>We are not allowed to stipulate that son will never drive new car. I don’t know if that is a CT rule or GEICO rule. Cars are not leased so we can set $500 deductible. I should probably look into homeowner’s as we pay a large sum to Chubb even with $2500 deductible</p>
<p>Many companies offer large discounts if you have your homeowners insurance with the same company as your auto insurance.</p>
<p>Also, my independent insurance agent periodically has me “re-rated” for my auto insurance policy, which saves money.</p>
<p>“Many companies offer large discounts if you have your homeowners insurance with the same company as your auto insurance.”</p>
<p>I get that discount. </p>
<p>I was also told, don’t know if this is true or not, but if you have your auto with the same company as your homeowners it is less likely the company will drop your homeowners after you submit a claim or two.</p>