16 year old daughter just got her drivers license!

[sweetlady2k]

Part of my and her fathers agreement when we separated was i would pay the cell phone and he would pay car insurance. He added our daughter yesterday and it was 190 more per month! He is a veteran and has USAA insurance. Its 114 for me full coverage and no deductable. 120 for his car full coverage not sure what his deductable is and her car is paid off so just basic insurance. Is this typical? Seems higher than i would've expected.

[bjl584]

Insurance rates vary so much from State to State and from area to area, that there is no way to tell if that's a typical rate or not. I would suggest just shopping around and/or playing with the deductibles and coverage levels.

[Robert742]

Part of my and her fathers agreement when we separated was i would pay the cell phone and he would pay car insurance. He added our daughter yesterday and it was 190 more per month! He is a veteran and has USAA insurance. Its 114 for me full coverage and no deductable. 120 for his car full coverage not sure what his deductable is and her car is paid off so just basic insurance. Is this typical? Seems higher than i would've expected.

A large rate increase when adding a young, newly licensed driver is not unusual. Since you have 3 cars and 3 drivers, your daughter is being rated as a principal driver, but this can be the best strategy when you have her driving an older car without comprehensive & collision coverage.

If your daughter is a full time student, and she has a "B" or better GPA, make sure she is getting a good student discount. Also, ask about the availability of driver training discounts.

USAA is a really good company, but they do not always have competitive rates in every state or zip code. You may want to get price quotes from a few other companies, for the same coverage you have now with USAA, to make sure USAA is offering you a competitive price on your auto insurance.

There are agents or people willing to give opinions on whether you are paying a reasonable rate or not, but I would not depend on their opinions. There are too many rating variables (zip code, type of car, driving record, etc.)and price variation among companies, for anyone to know what a good rate is, without shopping with all the leading companies. Some companies charge more than twice as much as others for the same coverage. The company with the best rates for a friend of yours, may have the highest rate for you.

As someone who used to sell auto insurance, I thought I knew the competitive companies in my area. But it wasn't until I started shopping rates with many companies each year, before I found the companies with the best combination of service, coverage, and rates for me. Car insurance company rates change over time, so if you want to avoid paying too much, you should check the rates of other companies periodically. I've seen people pay way too much for their auto insurance coverage, by staying with the same company or agent year after year, and never checking with other companies, to see if what they were paying was still competitive.

[sosabe77]

It's hard to tell but there are a lot of comparison shopping tools out now. You can use them and get a good feel for what rates are.

[Robert742]

It's hard to tell but there are a lot of comparison shopping tools out now. You can use them and get a good feel for what rates are.

If you use online comparison quoting for auto insurance, I would recommend using company sites, like Progressive. It's also okay if it is the website of an independent insurance agency, like Answer Financial (owned by Allstate now), but it will compare only the companies the agency represents. Also, independent agencies quoting online are usually only rough estimates. I used Answer Financial several years ago online, called to confirm the quote, and they wanted me to make a down payment before they confirmed the price. I went back online, selected the company with the rate I liked, and the price jumped up considerably, making me change my mind.

The majority of websites now promising price comparisons online do not provide them. They are owned by lead companies or affiliate marketers not selling insurance, but will sell your information to agents & companies, to contact you with a quote. Some of these lead companies are engaged in aggressive marketing, and you will get a call every three months to get quotes again. One company (Thank God they have finally stopped calling me) will call you a couple of times a week, and ignores the Do Not Call laws. One site promised online comparison quotes, collected my information, showed me the same static chart of price ranges it must show everyone, (i.e., State Farm $600 - $1,250), and I'm still getting unrelated spam from it.

You can use a throwaway emall and a fake phone number to avoid these problems, but the quotes you get emailed, based on the information you provided, will not be reliable.

I can't stress this enough; stick to the insurance company websites for online quotes -- most of the players selling auto insurance these days can quote you accurately through their company website. But it's still good to call and confirm before you buy.