Living in California has to be one of the most expensive states when it comes to anything, but especially auto insurance. Now that my son is 16, almost 17, we had to bite the bullet and let him get his drivers license. I had dragged my feet as long as I could. I was so scared because I had heard so many stories about how expensive our auto insurance was going to be when he was added.
So I did some pre shopping by calling some insurance agents I know in town. I also called our own insurance company and then I used an online auto insurance quote service that will give you quotes for different policies. It is called Quote Lab and you can get more information here. That was pretty cool because it is free and it is really easy to use too. You get quotes from all kinds of auto insurers so you can compare coverage and rates.
The thing about where I live is that the state requires you to carry a minimum about of liability insurance. That is nice until you figure out that the minimum is not enough to fix anything that you may damage and it does not even replace or fix your own damaged vehicle. Plus since my hubby and I carry full coverage and our son is going to be driving our car, why would I not want to protect him at the same rate as we protect ourselves? Ya, full coverage for him too!
Well through my searching, the quotes that I got from new insurers would have been oppressively high! I can see where people said, “be afraid… be very afraid!” Plus my son is still a student and not working so I knew that at this point he would not be helping to pay for this.
Well, through due diligence, I was able to add him to our policy without too much grief. Our rates did go up about 75% *cough* but the bright note is that because he is an A student, I was able to get a nice discount. Plus our cars are well aged so that helped to keep the price down too. But it still hurts to pay that bill each month!
I am so thankful that I only have one child. I do not know how people with multiple kids afford the insurance unless the child is working and pays for it themselves. On my son’s to-do list this summer – JOB! How many kids did you have to add to your auto policy and was it a strain on your budget?
I actually didn’t let my daughter drive until she could afford her own insurance. (mean Mom) By that time she had also saved enough for a junker and was almost 18 and managed to carry her own liability before it was made a requirement. She had saved detassling money, babysitting and almost everything else to do it.
No clue either how people with several children do it- we couldn’t afford one really much less more!