March 29, 2024

Bucks: The Impact of Adding a Teenager to Your Auto Policy

Most parents watch their children learn to drive with trepidation. But the stress of watching them get behind the wheel is compounded by the financial shock of adding a teenager to an automobile insurance policy.

A married couple with two cars pays on average 84 percent more for car insurance — or about $2,000 extra — after adding a teenage driver to an existing policy, according to a new analysis commissioned by InsuranceQuotes.com, an online insurance marketplace.

The national average annual premium for a 45-year-old couple with two cars is $2,283; adding a teenager to the policy boosts it to $4,202.

Boys are more expensive than girls, resulting in a 96 percent increase (compared with 72 percent for girls), on average.

“Teens are the riskiest drivers and the most expensive to insure,” said Laura Adams, senior insurance analyst at InsuranceQuotes. Teenagers are involved in three times as many fatal crashes as all other drivers, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

For the analysis, InsuranceQuotes.com contracted with Quadrant Information Services, which used data from the largest auto insurance carriers in each state to calculate the impact of adding a driver between the ages of 16 and 19 to a family’s car insurance policy. [Read more…]

Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/the-impact-of-adding-a-teenager-to-your-auto-policy/?partner=rss&emc=rss