<p>My daughter is starting school in a couple weeks, will not be bringing a car, and will return home only a couple times during the school year. What do people do for car insurance in this case? Right now she has her own car and has been paying a steep premium as part of the family car insurance. There is a “student away” option offered by the insurance company, which gives some discount. It seems like we could alternatively take her off our insurance while she is away and put her back on when she comes home. The insurance company said they don’t like to do this, but didn’t actually say that they would not or could not. If possible, it seems like that would be cheaper, albiet more work. Any experience with this?</p>
<p>You need to talk to your insurance company. Ours will NOT allow us to take a kid off and on while they are in college but they do have an “away at school” discount…which we used.</p>
<p>There are a couple of old threads on this. Some companies allow parents to put college students on-and-off the parent’s policy. Others offer an “away at school” option that dramatically reduces the premium but allows kids to drive during breaks and summer. Obvious neither of these is viable if the student is close by or takes a car to school!</p>
<p>We have Geico and have for years. They allow us to take our son off the insurance entirely but still consider him covered for the approximately 4 weeks he is home during the year. He is 3000 miles away and only home for a total of about 4 weeks during sporadic times. I have to fill out a form every year to Geico to go over the distance from school to our home and whether or not he has a car at school.</p>
<p>We couldn’t take our son off be he got a discount for being more than 200 miles away and good grades.</p>
<p>We’ve never got a satisfactory resolution for this with Allstate - our D goes to school 400+ miles away without a car, but our insurance doesn’t give us a break. It’s either a “good student” discount (about $200/6 months) OR the over 200 miles discount which is less, so effectively we get nothing for her being away for most of the year.</p>
<p>Allstate with us too, Dad of 3, but overall, they were cheaper than Geico and others for us (for now) One kid at a time…</p>
<p>We also have Allstate, but we are allowed to “exclude” DS as a driver from our policy. Our own agent does this with his college age children as well. We just call to “exclude”, then call when he returns to “include” him back on.</p>
<p>I’ve already spoken with USAA and like others, they have a special discounted rate if our daughter is more than a set number of miles (can’t remember the number…but she is definitely further away) from home without a car of her own. I was told that as long as she is a full-time student, even during her breaks home we do NOT have to call and tell them she’s back…she still has full coverage wherever she is as long as she remains a full-time student.</p>
<p>Policies vary by company.</p>
<p>I was expecting a big discount from Erie when S went off to school 360 miles away, but it was only going to drop a hundred bucks or so. Switched to GEICO who basically doesn’t charge us for S, even though he is drives when he is home on breaks and over the summer. They didn’t charge us for D when she had a learner’s permit, either, though Erie would have. </p>
<p>Bye-bye Erie, hello GEICO! (Hare their commercials, though)</p>
<p>Our insurance company (State Farm) reduces the rate a lot if the child is away at school, but it must be a minimum number of miles from home (can’t remember - 100 miles??). S goes to boarding school, but it is less than that distance, so even though he doesn’t come home that often, we pay the same rate as if he were living at home. Also, interestly, I believe it’s either less $ or distance for girls v. boys…just got some amendment in the mail about that.</p>
<p>Aw c’mon show the gecko some love Dado2!</p>
<p>The gecko with the bad British accent…
So easy a caveman could do it…
it’s the money you could be saving with GEICO…
15 minutes could save you 15 percent…</p>
<p>But they did save me a bundle.</p>
<p>We’ve had GEICO forever and exclude DS during the school year but put him on during the summers since he had a local internship and was driving back and forth every day. It really does save money.</p>
<p>If I boycotted every product/service whose commercials I can’t stand…I guess I would save even more money!</p>
<p>We have USAA and the “child away from home” distance is 100 miles. It saved a bunch of money, but I can’t remember if the amount saved was different between DS and DD when each left.</p>
<p>An interesting twist happened when DS took his car to school when he moved off campus. We live in Maryland and he had to get a separate Texas policy. His insurance more than doubled because of loss of the multi-car family discount and higher liability costs in Texas. USAA has since changed this practice and DD can have a car at school and it’s still on the family policy with all the discounts.</p>
<p>My parents thought about it as well, and honestly it’s smarter for your D to take the car to school.<br>
you might be paying slightly less insurance, but let’s not forget about depreciation.
Although my car supposedly holds its value good, leaving it at home would be a huge loss.</p>
<p>My dad asked me “sell it or take it”. I gladly chose the latter :)</p>