Archive for category young drivers
Which are the Cheapest Cars to Insure for Teenagers
Posted by Steve in young drivers on June 8, 2009
The New VW Tiguan is an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety "Top Pick", one of the best ways to get cheap insurance.
Which are the cheapest cars to insure for teenagers? If you are a teenager or have one that you’re footing the bills for, that is a pretty pertinent question. As insurance takes a pretty nice chunk of your monthly income, getting the cheapest insurance can really help with the monthly bills. One of the most important factors in how much you pay for insurance is your choice of cars.
Insurance companies look at various risk factors when setting rates. Teens have 3 big strikes against them as risk factors; they have limited driving experience, high testosterone levels (boys, of course), and poor judgment. Combine that with peer pressure, and it is a not a recipe for cheap car insurance.
Putting teens in powerful cars can lead to unfavorable or tragic consequences. That is why letting junior have the keys to your new SRT-8 isn’t always the best course of action. There are other factors that dictate how expensive a car is to insure besides power output, though. Available safety features, crash test results, replacement cost, and its likely hood of being stolen factor in as well. There is probably a bit of incantations and mumbo jumbo that insurance companies throw in when they are determining rates, too.
Here are some cars your teenagers can drive that will be a bit easier on your wallet when the insurance bills come due.
The Ford Fusion is a safe, economical car that is inexpensive to insure and great to drive.
Ford Fusion – Ford’s midsize sedan is a great car for teens to drive. It is safe, gets relatively good gas mileage, and is subdued enough to help teens repress the urge to show off somewhat. There is even a hybrid version available that helps keep fuel costs low. We are experiencing relatively low fuel prices now (although they are rising rapidly), but this situation will probably change in the not too distant future. The Fusion also has the handling and safety features to help keep drivers from getting in an accident in the first place. Consumer reports predicts the Fusion’s reliability as much better than average.
Honda Civic – Honda’s little compact is already popular with teens, but unfortunately many of those kids are exactly the ones the insurance companies are worried about. Honda’s have a plethora of performance parts available because it is the the car kids love to modify for go fast use. That being said, it still has much to recommend it as a car for teenagers to drive. It gets fantastic fuel mileage, is extraordinarily reliable, and drives very well. It also scores very well in safety tests scoring a best pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Toyota Camry – Toyota’s ubiquitous mid sized sedan has been a best seller for years, and with good reason. It drives very well, if not providing loads of excitement behind the wheel, gets five star safety ratings all around, is economical, and very reliable. As an added bonus, not too many kids will be hot rodding around in a Camry, versus a new Camaro.
Hyundai Sonata - This car looks a bit like a cross between a Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, but is is all Hyundai. For those who remember the Korean manufacturer’s dismal reliability ratings of 15 years ago, you need to take a fresh, new look at this company. They have followed much the same path as Japanese auto manufacturers did 3 decades before them. Now they make reliable, full featured cars, that consistently rate at the top of their categories for value. The Sonata is a great car for teens because it scores very well on safety tests, handles fairly well, and has enough power to get out of an accident, but not enough to promote getting into one. The car also has a 100,000 mile warranty, which should make parents smile a bit.
Toyota Corolla - Toyota’s little compact has been a best seller for years, and with good reason. It scores very well in crash tests, is reliable, gets superb fuel economy with the smaller engine option, and drives well. It can be a little short on features in some of its lower trim levels, but hey, do your kids really need power windows?
Volkwagen New Beattle - VW’s blast from the past may look somewhat like the old Beetle from the days of flower power and funny smelling cigarettes, but it is a totally different car. It even drives the front wheels, rather than the rear. It has been with us for a decade now, and is a favorite of kids everywhere. Best of all it is very inexpensive to insure compared to many other cars. That low insurance cost, combined with good fuel economy makes it a great car for teenagers.
If you’re shopping for an SUV for your kids here are some low insurance cost picks
Hyundai Sante Fe - This mid sized SUV is one of the cheapest SUVs to insure and it is a good value, making it a great SUV for your kids to drive. It also received an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety “Best Pick” for 2008, meaning it will protect better than most in a crash.
Mazda Tribute – This re-badged Ford Escape is for some reason less expensive to insure than it’s U.S. badged twin. Nonetheless, it is a great all weather ride in all wheel drive guise, gets pretty good fuel economy for an SUV and is among the least expensive vehicles to insure. Top that off with the Tribute’s (and Ford Escape’s) “best pick” safety status from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and you’ve got a real winner for teenage drivers.
VW Tiguan – VW’s latest entry into the small SUV segment has gotten great reviews, however it can get a bet spendy in if you check the box for AWD at the top trim levels. It also requires premium gas for its turbocharged, direct injected, 2.0 liter power plant. What it does do however, is deliver another “top pick” for safety from the IIHS, ensconce the driver and passengers in a fantastic interior, and deliver great gas mileage with good performance. In the aforementioned IIHS tests, the Tiguan had the strongest roof, supporting 4 times the vehicles weight, some comfort if you’re ever in a rollover accident. These safety ratings should give excellent insurance rates for the Tiguan.
If your teenager is driving, you’ll need to get insurance, and there’s no sense in making an already expensive proposition even more so. Get one of the cheapest cars to insure for your teenager and help keep your rates down. Another important way to help get the lowest insurance rates to compare among different companies. Not all companies price teenage drivers the same, so comparing rates can have you paying less. It can be a chore getting quotes from all the different companies out there, so you get it done for you automatically at by clicking here.
Cheap Car Insurance for Teenagers – How to Make Sure Your Teens Drive Better
Posted by Steve in young drivers on May 8, 2009
It can cost about this much to insure some teenage drivers. Does it have to?
If you are paying the car insurance bills for a teenager you’re well aware of how ungodly expensive they can be. Sure, there are ways to make it cheaper, and I went over some of the ways to get cheaper car insurance for teenagers in a post last month.
The whole problem stems from the fact that the overwhelming majority of teenagers simply don’t drive as well as older people. It’s true. Ask your own if you think I’m making this up. This is because of many things, including inexperience behind the wheel, high testosterone levels, peer pressure, the inability of young people to truly realize the long term effects of stupidity, and any number of other factors.
Well, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, that part of the insurance industry that has so much fun crashing perfectly good vehicles about in their lab, has found a great way to make teens drive better. In a study from the Institute, it was discovered that keeping an eye on your kids when they are driving improves their driving tremendously. Think about it, do you really think that Joe or Joelene would be flying down the county road at 80mph if you were in the car with them?
You know that there is no way that the kids would do many of the things they do, if mom and dad were riding along. That is common sense, and it agrees with the Institutes’s findings. To monitor the kids, a black box was installed in their cars. This wonder of modern technology helps the kids realize when they are trying too hard to imitate Lewis Hamilton, Tanner Foust, or Greg Biffle by sounding an in-car buzzer.
However, the real deterrent from the device is undoubtedly the fact that parents can log on to a website and look at the data. That’s right, mom and dad can jump online and see how fast the kids were driving, if they were braking too hard or if they had their seat belts unbuckled. It works so well that the little, black box gets a 98% approval rating from parents.
There are other devices as well, such as mini GPS tracking systems. Widely used by business to track their fleets and spouses that suspect their partner of cheating on them, they work well to keep an eye on junior, too. They are relatively simple to install, and can download a complete track of the vehicle’s exact whereabouts, speed and length of stops. Want to be sure that Buffy really was studying at the library? Use one of these mini GPS tracking systems. Making sure they know they are being watched will help keep them in line behind the wheel. The better teenagers drive, the lower their insurance rates….in theory anyway.
17 Year Old Car Insurance – How to Get it Cheaper
Posted by Steve in young drivers on April 11, 2009
Choose Your Car Carefully
Getting car insurance for your 17 year old can be quite an endeavor. If nothing else, it can be very expensive. There are things you can do to get your teenager car insurance cheaper than if you just stumble blindly to your agent’s office and blurt out “Johnny just turned 17, I need some insurance!”
Some of the things fall squarely on the shoulders of Johnny himself (or Jeanette, perhaps). No matter if your teen is a boy or girl, they can help you help them by doing the following to help lower their rates:
Get good grades – Almost every insurance company gives a discount for good students. This can be substantial. To qualify for a good student discount, your child should maintain at least a 3.0 (on a 4 point scale) GPA. Not only will that help them get into a better college, but it will; save you money on their insurance; possibly up to 25%, which is no small potatoes.
Drive a sensible car – Cars likely to be hot-rodded, stolen, or are expensive to repair are commensurately more expensive to insure. If you teen happens to be the one driving this can take on eve greater significance. At age 25 your insurance rates typically go down 10 – 15%, so if you want a fast car, wait until you’re 25 years old to buy it. (NOTE: Some companies are giving a larger break at 30 years old now, rather than 25)
At 17, you’ll want something like a Saturn. Both the ION and L300 have shown to be among the least expensive vehicles to insure. If plastic body panels just don’t fly for you, try a Jeep Liberty Sport, or a 2 year old Toyota Camry. While a Camry may not be what you’d like to drive, they are great cars, and they’ll save you on insurance.
Keep your deductibles high – I’ve said this in other posts, but in most cases you don’t want to turn in a minor accident to the insurance company anyway. If you do, you can kiss cheap insurance goodbye for a few years, at the least. Usually a $1,000 deductible will suffice.
Keep your driving to a minimum. – You can get better rates if you drive fewer miles. If you only use your car for transportation to work and school, you can save money too. Talk with your agent to get the details.
Make sure you shop around. - There’s nothing like comparison shopping to save money, and this is definitely true with car insurance for young people. Some companies treat young drivers with more leniency than do others, so it behooves you to check. Checking all the hundreds of different companies available can be a difficult and time consuming process. Most people have better things to do than making dozens of phone calls to check insurance rates for their children.
Thankfully, technology has an answer. Companies such as InsureMe.com will check your specifics with dozens of companies to get the best rate for your specific situation and get you multiple quotes to choose from. Click here now to have them check how much money you can save by comparison shopping for insurance.
Getting your 17 year old car insurance is going to be expensive, but maybe it doesn’t have to be so expensive….
Cheap Car Insurance for a Young Driver – How to Get It
Posted by Steve in young drivers on March 27, 2009
If Feels Great to Get Cheap Car Insurance
When you first start behind the wheel, you have many expenses, your car, gas, and insurance. How to get cheap car insurance for a young driver becomes a pretty important question, as insurance companies are usually not too friendly to younger drivers. This comes down to one thing; actuarial tables.
Actuarial tables quantify the risk an insurance company faces for a given set of variables. When examining the accident statistics for teenagers, one thing becomes frighteningly clear; they crash far more than the average person. That means the insurance company will pay out more, on average for drivers under 18 years of age. In fact the risk of serious injury or death for drivers in their first year behind the wheel are much higher than for the general population.
According to a U.S. Center for Disease Control report on driver safety and accident prevention, “Young people ages 15-24 represent only 14% of the U.S. population. However, they account for 30% ($19 billion) of the total costs of motor vehicle injuries among males and 28% ($7 billion) of the total costs of motor vehicle injuries among females.” This is in addition to the crashes caused by those in this age group that cause motor vehicle damage, but require no medical treatment.
Now you know what the insurance industry is so biased against young drivers. Here is what you can do about it if you’re in this group or paying the insurance bill for one of them.
Get the correct kind of car.
The make, model and year of vehicle plays a big part in the rates the company will ask you to pay. Performance oriented vehicles are more expensive to insure because of their higher accident rates and cost to repair.
According to the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) some great, inexpensive to insure cars for teen drivers include:
Jeep Wrangler LWB
Dodge Dakota Quad Cab
Honda Civic
Subaru Outback
Get Good Grades.
Accurately or not, the insurance companies view the person’s GPA as an indicator of their general responsibility, and otherwise good sense. Statistics also point to the insurance companies being spot on with this one. That’s why car insurance companies offer good student discounts. SO, if you’re in high school or college, keep those grades up and your insurance rates down.
Keep your Credit Score High.
If you’re only 16 you may not have to worry about this too much yet, but for those in their late teens or early 20’s the importance of your credit score can not be understated. Not only will your insurance company use this as one of their primary factors when setting your rates, but a high credit score will let you pay less for your loan when you buy your car too. You’ll also save money on everything else credit related as well.
Keep your driving record clean.
This is a biggie, especially for younger drivers. Many young drivers have a huge problem being responsible behind the wheel. This is yet another reason why getting a comparatively boring car will keep your rates down. You’ll pay less initially, but you’ll also stand a lower chance of doing dumb things that will get you cited by the local gendarmes. After all, it’s much harder to squeal the tires in 4 cylinder, all wheel drive Subaru than it is in a 1995 Camaro with a 5.7 liter V8.
Get a multi-Policy Discount.
Most companies will give you a discount for buying two or more lines of insurance from them. So, if you also have a motorcycle or boat, insure it with the same company that handles your car insurance. If you have renter’s insurance, look at them for this too. If you’re married, the insurance on your wedding rings may qualify you for this discount as well.
Keep your deductibles as low as possible.
This can really lower your rates. Your deductible is the amount that you’ll have to pay out of pocket before your insurance coverage kicks in. More practically it is the amount of damage that you can sustain before you report the accident to your insurance company. Since you want to report as few accidents as possible, you’ll usually be much better off to keep your deductibles high and just pay out of your own pocket unless the damage is so high that there’s no way you can afford to pay them yourself. When you report an accident to the insurance company rest assured your rates will rise.
Compare rates between different insurance companies.
Companies charge different rates and they price different risks differently. So because of your individual situation, you may get a much lower rate form one company than another. There are hundreds of good companies in the U.S. alone. Comparing them yourself is a very difficult and time consuming proposition. You can do it online quickly and easily, with a few mouse clicks – click here.
Insurance is never completely inexpensive, but following these simple guidelines will help you get cheap car insurance for a young driver if you are, or have to insure one.
