thelifeandtimes

Here's the deal. I am 19 years old and am moving out of my parents house in July. This means no auto insurance for me. The last few days I have been going online on the major insurance companies to get quotes for an idea of how much it is going to cost per month.

The question is, for a 19 year old full time college student, who makes a decent living, what coverage levels should I get? I don't want to have to spend an arm and a leg(thats what college is for), but I also don't want me or my car to be underissured. Any advice?

A little side question. If my car is under my mom's name and not mine, does the current insurance policy for the family follow the car owner or the car driver?

Thanks in advance.

Carno

See if you qualify for USAA. You can get auto insurance through them and they are very good. I'm a 22 year old male with an SUV and my insurance costs me $100/month.

Randerolf

Try Amica also. USAA and Amica among the highest rated.

Here's a thread where some fools tried to educate me on insurance.

Anexkahn

If you are already on your family's policy, it doesn't hurt to get a quote from your current agent. Especially if your family has several lines of coverage (home, auto, etc) through them, and they have had you on the auto policy for awhile already, they may go out of their way to give you a competitive rate to keep you as a customer -- at the very least, it's worth the time to ask for a quote probably.

As for coverage levels, that depends on whether you currently own the vehicle outright or not. If a lendor holds the title, then your minimums are spelled out in your contract and you have to adhere to them or the vehicle is subject to reposession. If you own it outright, a good method is to ask yourself if it was hit tomorrow, what would you want to pay to fix it. Personally, once i have paid off a vehicle I keep the legal minimums because if it gets tagged, i'll either live with the damage, fix it myself, or its a good excuse to upgrade to a new vehicle.... that doesn't work for everyone tho, but it is really a matter of how much can you aford to pay after a collision, and then weigh that against the premium.

The_Jazz

Randerolf, if I'm one of the "fools", I'm going to take that personally. After all, this is my job, boring as it is at times.

USAA is limited to military personnel and their families. I have USAA as well, but only because my father was in the Army. One of their underwriting secrets is limiting their customer pool to a very known quantity. That, however, is a completely different discussion.

If you are moving out into your own apartment, you also need renters insurance, which would pick up the contents of your place as well as provide you with some liability coverage should somone slip and fall there (for instance). As you can see from the other thread, No_Soup found that combining the two actually made the auto insurance much cheaper. I've had different results.

One thing I have to wonder about is the college comment that you made. If you are off to college, most policies will cover that change automatically. You should check since it might mean that you don't have to do anything.

If the car is titled in your mother's name and she's paying the insurance, you don't need to make any change at all. Auto insurance follows the vehicle, not the driver, so if someone borrows the car and bangs it up, it is covered. I trust that answers your side question?

The question about what limits you should buy is a lot tougher and that's why I saved it for last. I think that I need to caution anyone else that if they give any advice on this specific subject, they probably should have an insurance license in whatever state they're in. It's probably illegal otherwise. With that said:

Buy the highest limits you can afford. If that's the state mandatory (most are $20k/$40k/$10k), so be it. However, if you're looking for the minimum that I think is realistic in today's legal environment and with the inflation since the minimums were set over 20 years ago (in most cases), then the answer is $100k/$300k/$50k. Let me know if you don't know what those limits mean, and I can interpret for you, but if you're shopping, you should have already seen it. Personally, I think that everyone should have at least $1M, but that's my personal opinion and not my professional one.

One other thing, talking to your parents' agent is a fantastic idea. The online things are ok if you've got some experience, but having a real person to ask questions of and get opinions from is definitely worth it. Independent agents can almost always give you multiple options as well.

Let me know if I can be of any further service.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

braisler

Jazz, I'm not an insurance professional, but isn't suggesting $100K/$300K insurance to a college student a bit much? Maybe if the car and/or policy is still linked to his parents, then there might be more to 'go after' if the worst happens, but if the OP has fewer assets that $100K, I don't see the reason for a higher premium than he needs to pay.

Your other comment about someone borrowing your car and banging it up hits on a recent auto commercial I have seen that implies the opposite. I don't recall the company that was offering it, maybe Allstate, but the commercial implies the opposite and basically claims the idea of being covered no matter who you loan your car to as a totally new idea and exclusive to them. What a crock! Does that approach false advertising?

__________________
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You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein
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The_Jazz

The easy question first - I constantly laugh at the Allstate adds. Some of them are good (the courtroom one), but the one that you mentioned is a classic in terms of misdirection. Unfortunately, I think that I didn't do a good enough job explaining exactly how Personal Auto works. Basically, there are two issues here - scheduled drivers and scheduled autos. They work in tandem when it comes to claims. If you drive your car, the distinction never becomes an issue. If you borrow someone else's car (or rent one), it becomes more important. First, in the case we're talking about thelifeandtimes should be a scheduled driver on his mother's policy already so this distinction is a moot point. However, if someone steals your car, you're not liable for damages to others caused by that driver. If someone borrows it with permission, typically both their policy and your policy contribute to the loss, depending on the actual circumstance. What Allstate has done, technically, is transform their policies, which used to be written as Symbol 7 (scheduled autos, scheduled drivers) and changed it to Symbol 1 (all autos, all drivers). Really, they haven't done anything all that groundbreaking from what I can tell (without having read their policy wording).

The limits question is a little more touchy, and I understand where you're coming from. However, my recommendation isn't based on 19 year-old today but the person in the future. The statutory limits were set in the mid 80's in most states and haven't been updated since (it's the same on the commercial side too, btw). That means that in 1985, the state thought that $20,000 was enough to pay a person injured in an auto accident. In today's dollars that should be about $30,000, but in real dollars (which includes healthcare costs that have risen faster than inflation), it's closer to $50,000. As I said, I think everyone should have a $1M limit, but I also know that's not necessarily afforable for everyone. Think of a bad accident with injuries and think of the medical bills from the injured parties. Even if the OP has less than $100k in assets, a judge could chose to garnish his wages until the claimant is paid off for his injuries (assuming a bad at-fault accident). With this high of a limit, you not only protect your current assets but your future ones as well.

And by the way, everyone should always buy Medical Payments coverage and Uninsured/Underinsured Motorists coverage. Both of these protect you if you're hit by someone else. If you can't afford them, that's fine, but it's my professional recommendation that you buy the coverage.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Randerolf

Aw, Jazz. It was meant a self deprecating joke. I was the one who started the thread after all. I value the opinions of TFP members, especially yours. No offense intended. Mea Culpa.

/Threadjack. Had to get that off my chest.

The_Jazz

Randerolf - no blood no foul

/case closed.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo