18 Year Old Teen Driver Insurance in Washington
Reader’s Question:
I am only 18 years old and I am just wondering what is the best insurance plan to go with if you are a teenager and you are just about to get your drivers license in Washington?
Tom
Vancouver, WA
Almost every state including the state of Washington requires you to purchase a minimum amount of liability coverage. Chances are that you will need more liability insurance than the state requires since accidents cost more than the minimum amount limits. If you are found legally responsible for damages that are more than your auto insurance insurance policy covers, you will have to pay the difference out of your own pocket. These bills could wipe you out! You must consider how much you stand to lose or have the potential to lose (as you are still young). You may want to purchase as much coverage as you feel comfortable with and a car insurance coverage that you can afford.
What Is The Average Teen Auto Insurance Rate?
Car insurance companies are taking monitoring your teens driving to new heights with all of the different programs to allow parents to control their teen auto insurance rate by making sure that said teen is driving responsibly. This is one of the newer ones, called Teensurance, which is even more in depth and up to date then the DriveCam that I talked about in another post. Here’s a breakdown of the provisions of Teensurance, which is from Safeco Insurance.
- Roadside assistance.
While roadside assistance is great for anybody, teen’s could use it even more than most because they are more prone to not thinking ahead. Teensurance provides them with up to three gallons of gas if they run out on the road, it charges their battery if it goes dead (and teens often do things like leave the lights on for hours), it replaces tires, and it can open a car when the keys are locked inside, among other things.
- TeenDASH.
This is like a test given to your teen that will determine how they would react in certain driving situations and provide you with ways to get them to do the right thing. The better they can score on this test, the better their teen auto insurance rate will be. You can also compare your own teen to others nationwide by doing this.
- Help for parents.
Teen surance is involved with both the teen and the parent. It provides parents with materials to help them lower their teen auto insurance rate, and shows them how things such as tickets cause the teen auto insurance rate to rise.
- Safety Beacon.
This is perhaps the most innovative aspect of the Teensurance teen auto insurance rate plan. It provides real time updates for parents on a portable device, so they can communicate with their teen and monitor their movements through the GPS system.
- Tracking. The Safety Beacon GPS tracks a car if it is stolen so that it has a chance of being recovered.
- Unlock. In many cases, you won’t even need to call roadside assistance, because if your teen locks his keys in the car you can unlock it through the Safety Beacon device.
- Speed monitoring. You get instant messages on your device f your teen is going over the speed limit that you have set for them. For example, if you limit them to driving forty miles an hour, then you will be notified when they go over that amount for a minute or more.
- Curfew. If your teen is using the car while they aren’t allowed to be, you get notified.
While some parents might see the teen auto insurance rate policy as a little authoritarian, you should think about safety first. I know that as a teen I would have hated it, but this type of monitoring saves lives.
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