Don't overlook car insurance discounts
If your teen can't get by without wheels, check with your insurer to see what types of discounts might be available.
A study done for Nationwide in 2010 of almost 1,500 parents of teens between the ages of 15 and 19 found auto insurance costs soared an average of $800 a year just by adding a teenager to their policy.
Many auto insurers offer good-student discounts to teens who maintain at least a B average. At Nationwide, that discount reaches 25%, says spokeswoman Elizabeth Stelzer.
Like many other companies, Nationwide also offers discounts if your teen completes a driver's education course, Stelzer says. And bundling multiple insurance policies, like auto, homeowners and life insurance, will also cut costs.
And as with adults, the cleaner the driving record, the lower the insurance costs.
If your teen heads off to college, lives more than 100 miles from home and doesn't have a car on campus, you're also likely to get a break on your auto insurance, Walbert says. That's because the teen isn't a regular operator of the vehicle but still can drive it when he or she comes home on break.
Asserting your parental influence
Several insurance companies offer monitoring devices that keep an eye on your teen's driving behavior. That may mean sending you a notification if your teen does something he or she is not supposed to do, providing the teen with verbal feedback or transmitting video of the driving using a two-way camera.
Depending on the system installed, it might monitor certain specified behaviors, like speeding, seat-belt usage, hard braking and cornering, arrival and departure times, or moving the car when it isn't supposed to be moved.
One deterrent to widespread use of such devices may be their cost, as well as the monthly monitoring fee, Rader says.
With the Teensurance program from Safeco, auto insurance discounts of up to 15% are offered if the Safety Beacon GPS-based system is used.
"We want to create a tool that helps parents and teens having a discussion about what safe practices are," says Shawn Anderson, product innovation architect at Liberty Mutual Insurance, which owns Safeco.
Another option is technology that blocks cellphone calls and text messages when a vehicle is in motion, Rader says.
And Ford has introduced MyKey on some vehicles, which can be programmed to limit a vehicle's top speed or the volume of audio devices, he says.
"A lot of technology exists and will become more widely available in the future," Rader says.
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