How long can your “kids” stay on your car insurance?
And does anyone take their kids off their insurance while they are at school-with no car? My 18yo male with an accident is $$$$$.
My kids have always been on.
Even now, my son is on mine - I just bought him a car the other day but i own it and registered here. Below 25 they are expensive. It’s registered in TN but garaged elsewhere.
I occasionally bump into folks at Costco from my old work - one had two kids at USC and who now reside in LA - and he does the same - he owns, registers here in TN, and it’s garaged elsewhere, etc.
For how long or what’s reasonable - I don’t know. My kid is 23.
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Depending how far away your child will be for college, your insurance company may provide a discount for an “away” student. They are still covered when they are home driving. We saved approx $400/year when our insurer (Geico) offered us this classification. The kids still drove when they were home for the holidays and summer - discount remained.
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If your kid graduates college and is (right after graduating) living in another state- I guess they can’t remain on your car insurance…?
That’s going to be our scenario, so just wondered…
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I think the answers could vary by situation and company rules. We had our daughter keep driving our very old “third car” (in same state) a year or two after college before donating it. It enabled her to start out without a car loan. I do not recall if we asked our insurance agent about this… probably would be a good idea. I think we also kept our Boston son on he policy (no car) during college and after until learning he’d be considered a “guest driver”(?) when visiting home.
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My kids couldn’t be on my insurance because we are in HI and they are in CA. We shipped each of them an old car each in their SR year of college. Each had to get a policy in CA to cover the respective car. D is still driving her used car over a decade later. S eventually replaced his car several times and has mostly—now always made sure to keep an auto policy in effect in the various places he’s lived (CA, VA, NY).
I wanted to keep them on our policy but was told I couldn’t.
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I think it’s company dependent - I was told I can (garage elsewhere) but I was told that if I shopped, looked for another, other companies wouldn’t let me garage elsewhere.
In my state, rates are going up up up for all - and I imagine underwriting is getting tougher and tougher for new policies.
If my son owned the car, then he’d have to insure himself, etc - that’s why I own it.
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Yes, we still own the car that D drives - she’s moved to several different states but we keep it registered and insured in CA. I’m not even sure whether we could/should re-register it in the state she is living in - has anyone tried this? The state she is living in now says that cars that are either owned by a resident or mostly driven there should be registered in the state, but it seems like it would be complicated for us as non-residents to register the car there (we’d presumably have to either travel there to do it or transfer the car title to D), not to mention the added challenges of insuring it there too. I have heard that some states (IIRC Maryland was one example) will ticket cars with out of state registration if they are parked on the street for more than a few days?
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In CA, D was told her classmates / friends were getting ticketed if they didn’t register that cars in CA within 30 days, I believe. I had them promptly register the cars and insure and got AAA (older cars—didn’t want kids stranded in breakdown).
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Yes, and that’s what we expected our employed kids to do once they graduated from college. We gifted each of them one car but they had to pay for everything else related to the car…including insurance. They didn’t drive our cars once they had their jobs.
In our state, all licensed drivers need insurance. When our DD was in Africa in the Peace Corps and was not allowed to drive, didn’t have a car, and wouldn’t be driving, we wanted to drop her from our policy. Honestly, it took us a LOT of effort and documentation to make that happen.
Contact your insurance company. Ours gave an away at school discount of a rousing $100 a year. This varies by company. Some places will allow you to remove your kid from your policy while in college and put him back on.
But remember…if your kid wants to rent a car, or he drives someone else’s car…it might be good for him to have his own coverage.
ETA…I guess paying for your adult kids car insurance (once they have jobs and are out of college) is a family decision, just like paying for college.
In the case of this OP, her kid is still a college student…so calling their insurance company is the only way to know.
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Our D (2023 college grad) lives in Manhattan, has no car (we are in Illinois). She can stay on our insurance which covers her if she comes home to drive, rents a car, or drives someone else’s car.
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Our kids eventually get a used car for themselves from us, after a sharing situation (5 kids). After the demise of that vehicle, they are expected to purchase their own, plus their own insurance and ezpasses. Right now we still have 3 on our insurance, we own 4 vehicles, and pay about $8000 a year in insurance (2020, 2016, 2012, 2007). The two who are now off our insurance (27 and 25) had some unfortunate claims (and a few totaled vehicles that we never filed claims for).
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Guessing rules vary, but when DD had a car out of state in college (initially in our names), we notified our insurer each time it was there vs at our home. It was their requirement and added a bit to the annual cost. Check with your insurer.
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We are just getting ready to make the change. D is 23. Her car is titled/registered to us. We got a discount on the insurance when she was at school and the car was at home. Post graduation, she’s working in the same area as we live, so again no issues keeping her on our insurance.
D’s moving to the SE this summer so we are transferring the title to her, she’ll register in her new state, and get her own insurance. It should be cheaper for her than what she is paying us to remain on our insurance. Also, if we kept the car titled to us, she would have to come back for the state required e check with the car every other year, which would be a huge and unnecessary pain.
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In Virginia, you have 30 days to register your vehicle. I saw a reference if you’re temporarily living in the state, you can go 6 months at a time. But a car that permanently resides in a state really ought to be registered in the state it’s in. A neighbor (we assume) turned us in when I was in college. We had my car registered in my college town, since it was much cheaper than NOVA. But I was home for the summer, and someone told the county that was my was there > 30 days, and the county sent my parents a letter. They pointed out that the car resides in college town 9 months/year and they said OK.
The idea was when my kids graduated and got a real job, they would be independent and that included all car costs. The IRS considers them to be independent. We “sold” older S his old car for $1 and he got his own insurance as soon as he graduated - during the covid lockdown. That was fun. Younger S we held off for a few months, because he moved to a different state, and he was trying to buy a new car. I didn’t see a reason to sell him the car, pay for new registration, and then turn around and sell it a couple of months later. But the process wound up taking about 4 months before he got his car, and we were able to sell his and drop him from our insurance.
Edit - I forgot the OP’s kid was still in college. Yeah, we paid for them then, just like we did when they were home. Older S had his car at school all 4 years. Younger S for the last 3 years. And yes, it is $$$ and I am very thankful I’m done with that part of my life!!!
Word of caution to check your state’s law if you sell for $1. In my state, it means paying tax on the fair market value of the car so it makes more sense to gift it (but it has to be worth less than $15K).
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Good point, but in ours it was fine - not to mention the vehicle was old and cheap. It was actually cheaper in insure it in NOVA than in our LCOL city because NOVA doesn’t tax you if the value is < $3000!
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This is interesting. People in CA can snitch on you. Like in most states, failing to register an out of state vehicle in CA is also a crime. It falls under vehicle registration fraud.
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When older s was in college, he had my old car (it was a minivan and he was known as soccer mom) in his state. Our insurance company says that if the car is in another state for more than 6 mos, we had to insure it in that state, so we had to get him a separate policy and he came off our family discount 
Also, to renew the tag here (because he stayed in his state for his internships) he had to get the car “serviced”, send me the documentation which I then had to take to some clean air act office, get a certificate that served to substitute for the inspection required here, take it to the tag renewal office and then mail him the tag renewal sticker. Had to do this for 2 years, before he graduated, took a job, sold the car (which I believe we transferred to his name … can’t really recall) and he bought his own car and insurance. Younger s had my SIL’s old junker car in college (titled in our name and he was on our insurance). His summer internships were here in our home city so I was able to get it inspected and the tag renewed here. When he graduated he stayed for a year in the state where he went to college, so the title was transferred to his name and he got his own insurance.
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We have a 23 yr old and a 20 yr old. We bought them both used cars.
We transferred the title to the 23 yr old at 21, I believe, after they started working and moved out and got an apartment. They have their own insurance they pay for. They have since moved back in with us but are still working and paying for their own insurance.
The 20 year old is still on our insurance and is in college.