Taming Teen Driver Insurance Hikes

Having a newly-licensed teen driver in your house can mean more help with errands, parental pride with the milestone it represents and unfortunately, the potential for an auto insurance rate hike. Insuring teen drivers may raise your rates more than expected, but there are some simple, effective and rewarding things you can do to help keep those premiums down. Read on to learn about 2 easy steps to take to help lower your teenager's auto insurance bill.

1. Be a snoop.

With the help of your insurance agency and a little device attached underneath your dashboard, you can not only save some money but help your teen get off to a safer start. This device transmits a stream of informative data about your teen's driving habits, and this data can be shared with you as well. An algorithm detects certain parameters concerning your teen's driving, like speed, acceleration and braking and rates your teen's driving habits based on accumulated crash data available.

Your teen can earn high marks for exhibiting safe driving skills, such as maintaining the speed limit, taking turns slow and steady and avoiding the need to brake suddenly. Your teen will automatically be more aware of their driving; just knowing that the insurance agency and their parents are keeping up with how they drive will hopefully help them form safer habits for life. You might also consider how this device could help every driver in the family by making them more aware of their driving habits.

2. Improve focus.

While everyone can benefit from keeping their eyes, hands and attention to the task at hand, novice drivers with little driving experience tend to underestimate the probability of a crash occurring suddenly. This tendency to feel "bullet proof" and their love of their communication devices can combine to create a dangerous combination. Did you know that your teen is twice as likely to be involved in a crash if they are using a hand-held device?

The distractions don't end with cell phones; anything that takes your full attention away from the road should be verboten while driving. Using the navigation system, putting on make-up, fiddling with the sound system, and munching on a burger can all represent major, and entirely avoidable, distractions. You may already know that even relatively minor wrecks can make your high rates climb even higher, so ensure that your teen focuses only on driving while in the car.

In addition to these two methods of helping your teen drive safer (and keeping your rates down), consider driver education classes aimed at teen drivers. Some insurance companies give discounts for the teen drivers who participate in these classes that focus on safe driving and the horrors of a serious accident. Contact your auto insurance agent for more information about these and more ways to save money and keep your teen safe while driving.  Contact a business, such as Deihl Insurance Agency, for more information.