FAQs: Youthful Drivers Insurance

FAQs: Youthful Drivers Insurance

Listen Here!

Transcription

Hey everybody, I’m Mike with Local Impact. I am sitting down with Danny today with Bray and Oakley. Danny if you don’t mind, tell us a little bit about yourself and who Bray and Oakley is.

 

Hey Mike. Thanks for having me. Danny Crum. I’m the Vice President of Sales here at Bray and Oakley Insurance Agency. I take care of all six of our locations in Lexington, Kentucky; Pikeville, Kentucky; Richmond, Kentucky; Logan West Virginia; Chapmanville, West Virginia and Weston West Virginia. It’s good to be here. 

 

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Danny, we’re getting a lot of questions about teenage drivers, youthful drivers. And we’re gonna see if we get you to answer some of those for some of the people so. Sure. So how much does your insurance go up when you add a teenage driver?

 

Good question, Mike. And it’s funny, you’re talking teenage drivers. I have a 15 year old and today’s her 15th birthday and her and I actually just left the DMV where she got her learner’s permit. And, you know, the question you just asked is, “How much does insurance go up when you add a teenage driver”, is probably one of the most popular questions we get, in the insurance industry. I know that specifically. I do. And it goes up a lot, Mike, about that. They’re expensive. Typically, your policy will go up about 100%. Approximately, females seem to be a little less expensive than males. I think their driving records may be just a little worse. But you can expect about 100% increase. And it depends on carrier, depends on the state and things like that. But yeah, 100% is kind of the approximate average across the board.

 

Yeah, awesome. And now you guys have multiple carriers. So that’s something that you can help shop against to get us the lowest rate, correct?

 

Absolutely. We are an independent insurance agency. We’ve been in business well over 100 years. And we’ve got a good reputation. And we represent all the top carriers in the state of Kentucky and West Virginia. So anywhere you would go to get an insurance quote, you can come here and get it all taken care of in one stop.

 

Great, great. Okay, so what are the steps? How do I add a teenage driver to my policy? What do I need to do to make that happen?

 

Well, thats a good question as well. And I want to elaborate a little bit on that go a little in depth for you. Since you know, I now have a teenage driver. You know, when your son or daughter receives their learner’s permit, that would be in the state of Kentucky or West Virginia, which the two states we represent, you are not required to add that driver to your insurance policy. All right, so there’s no charge there. Some of the carriers do want to list that adolescent or teenage driver as a name on your policy just to kind of keep track of so when they do turn 16 and catches it, we can add them on and do what we’re supposed to do. So as long as they have a learner’s permit, they do not have to be added to the policy. Now once they receive a valid driver’s license in the state of West Virginia or the state of Kentucky, which states that the teenage driver can operate a vehicle on their own without the supervision of a legal guardian, the driver must be added to the insurance policy. And that’s very easily done. You call one of our offices, depending on your location, our customer service representatives will ask you a series of questions, takes probably 10 minutes, we endorse the policy and you’re taken care of.

 

Awesome. So how do I judge? What level of coverage I need for my driver, as I’m adding a teenage driver to my policy?

 

That’s a good question as well. And typically, I advise my clients, whether they have a young driver or not, alright, so you need as much insurance as you can afford. Okay, and that’s kind of how I start out with everyone. When I get asked the question, how much insurance do I need? Well, there’s a lot of scenarios that play into that factor. Okay. Assets, what you have out there, you know, your vehicles, your mortgages, and a lot of things go into that but the number one answer that I can give that kind of solves all that is buy as much insurance as you can afford on your budget that you know, because in reality you don’t know what’s going to happen. You know, you don’t know you may have a fender bender, you may end up God forbid in a head on collision, you don’t know. And so those expenses you know, they go up depending on the severity of the accident. So you know, we always like to start, something I train my producers and we train our officers to do is we want to start you out as the best we can. We’re looking to improve your policy, better your policy sell you at least the coverage you come to us with that we’re shopping against, but we typically want to improve that and give you better. Because again, you can’t have too much insurance but just because you can’t tell the future you know you don’t what’s gonna happen.

 

Sure, yeah. And you always want to make sure you’re keeping your, you know, your family safe. You know, with that, quote, what question we get a lot is, have you seen, through your experience, Is there a best car for a teenage driver?

 

The best way to answer that is to tell you the best, the worst car for teenage driver? How about that? Let’s flip that question. Typically, what I see with young drivers is anything that is fast, you don’t want your teenage driver in it. Your high performance cars or sports cars, things like that, that will be considered a sport vehicle when it comes to insurance. That’s where you’re going to receive the worst rate, okay? Where you will typically see the best rate depending on the carrier you’re with now different carriers rate, adolescent drivers, teenage drivers, or drivers in general differently, okay, some carriers want to assign a teenage driver to a specific vehicle. All right, you want to assign that teenage driver to the vehicle they’re driving. And the best rate for that is typically a liability only vehicle that’s a vehicle that does not carry or carry physical damage coverage, which is your comp and collision people hear the term full coverage, full coverage is your comprehensive and collision coverage on the auto policy. So the cheapest or less expensive way to go is to have a liability only vehicle, Okay? A lot of us don’t do some of us do, some of us don’t. And some carriers, it doesn’t matter. They’re going to rate the young driver on all vehicles. But again, the sports cars, fast cars, and typically the smaller, the smaller vehicles typically tend to carry the higher rates for young drivers.

 

Awesome. Okay, I didn’t know that. Okay. So is there a way I guess, how do I get the cheapest insurance I can for? I know you’ve answered this a little bit in some way. But is there a way to get a cheaper policy for my teenage driver?

 

So a good question. And cheap is a word that I don’t use in this agency. When you’re talking cheap, you’re talking? It’s a no no. So we talk value, right? Yeah. Okay. Cheap. Cheap is, you know, low policy limits, low premium. That’s cheap. You go buy cheap pair of shoes, you get a cheap pair of shoes. 100 year old agency, we sell value, we want you to have a good, good policy to a great policy. Again, don’t shop. And here’s some good advice that I give, don’t shop your insurance based on a premium amount. Okay. Okay. A lot of times what you pay for is what you get now, does price matter? 100%? It does. I live with three women. I know price. All right. So price does matter. I’ve got two girls and a wife. Yeah, so… so I know, I know, money does matter. But again, you want to purchase as much insurance as fits your budget, or you can afford value. So if I’m selling you a top tier policy, and I’m $50 More than somebody selling you a bare minimum limit policy, I’m offering a lot more value to you. If something happens, your insurance is never any good until you need it. And when you need it, that’s what matters.

 

Okay, yeah, that’s really great advice. In your experience, do you think, should a teen go on their own policy? Or should they continue on with their parents’ policy?

 

Good question. And all here’s the thing we remember is insurance follows the vehicle, right? And it’s based on a named insured basis. So there’s a couple of scenarios that would play into that too, as well. Does the teenage driver own their vehicle? Most cases? No, they don’t have the credit or the finances to do so. All right. Another thing is the parent or legal guardian is responsible for that teenage driver until they reach a certain age and which means that they would have to sign the application and everything for them. So it doesn’t really make sense for a teenage driver to have their own policy. The other side of that is this going to be extremely expensive because there’s no insurance history, there’s no insurance score, there’s no background, there’s no longevity there to build some equity in the insurance form. So it’s always best to add your young driver to your policy because typically they’re driving your vehicles anyway. Okay, you own them, insurance follows the vehicle. Some carriers and I’ll name drop a few such as Erie Insurance, they do what’s called a spin off. So if like my daughter, for instance, When she turns 16, if I’m not sure what the area insurance that put her on my policy, and she’s been on that policy for three years, she’s built some good driving experience and things like that I can bypass the high risk markets of her being young, and place her on her own Erie policy when she becomes of age and gets out on our own. So it will actually help her out a lot, you get a whole lot better rate by having that experience.

 

Awesome. Awesome. So I asked you kind of two combined questions. How can I save? I guess how can I save on adding a teen to my insurance? And are there programs, driver safety programs that can help with that?

 

Yes, there is. Everyone’s heard of driver’s education. That’s a question that I get a lot. Do you offer Driver’s Education discounts? Yes, some of our carriers do. Good student discounts. Some carriers do, this is not all carriers, each carrier differently specific. And each carrier kind of has their rewards program and things like that for young drivers. But yeah, those are two of the big ones. There are discounts for students that are off to college, but do not keep a vehicle with them at all times. Meaning that you would go pick them up and you would bring them home. There’s discounts for that, I mentioned Driver’s Ed. There are some programs with some carriers that do offer young drivers a reimbursement so to speak of premium for being safe and having safe driving habits. It’s kind of like a, I call it a plug and play or now we’ve got smartphones and tracks their driving, their braking, their speed and things like that. And if that driver ranks high on the score, the company will typically reimburse the policy back a little bit of premium to reward that.

 

Awesome. Awesome. Danny, is there any other just general advice that you would give to someone obviously, who’s in the same place that you are and maybe adding a teenage driver to their policy? Anything that you would recommend, any advice or anything at all?

 

Yeah, absolutely. Again, great question. Have an insurance agent, a professional insurance agent that you can actually sit down and speak with, don’t go online and purchase your insurance. I’m not saying that if you have that it’s wrong. You can do it. But have someone I mean, when you’re sick, you go to a doctor, you sit down and speak to someone that does that for a living they know they can advise you then give you great advice they can, they can help you. So my advice is to have an insurance agency or an insurance agent that is knowledgeable, they know what they’re doing. They’re looking out for your best interest and plan. Go to that agent, I encourage our customers all the time, you’ve got a 13 year old at home, come see us you know before they start driving. Let us have this conversation, bring them with you. I really encourage that, bring them with you and let us talk to them. Before they start driving, let us show them some scenarios of what they do and what they shouldn’t do texting and driving, things like that. Let us look at your insurance, let us advise you correctly there, we can even run you some rates. So if you’ve got a 15 year old driver, they do have a learner’s permit number. Some of our carriers will allow us to run you a rate to see where you’re at once they have their driver’s license, and they’re going to be on your policy. Vehicles, you’re looking for vehicles for your driver. Call us, let us run the vehicle with the driver, let us tell you what the rates are going to be. Surprises are not good when it comes to young drivers. Typically, it’s your sticker shock. Alright, so you know, you’re gonna get an increase. But really, you don’t know how much and I can’t even tell you exactly how much but we can do some work in the beginning to let you prepare for that.

 

Awesome. Well, great, Danny, I really, really appreciate you jumping on to talk to us today about teenage drivers. If somebody has a question if somebody wants to reach out who and how do they get a hold of someone at Bray and Oakley?

 

Yeah, absolutely. Well, each of us, you can go to our website. Of course, it has all of our office locations or web addresses there. Our main hub is Logan, West Virginia, that phone number is 304-752-6850. We can transfer you to any of our offices very quickly. www.brayandoakley.com is our website. And of course you can reach us on Facebook as well. We’ve always got someone monitoring these and we’ll get back to you very, very quickly.

 

Awesome. Awesome. Danny, thank you so much, man.

 

Thank you, It’s been a pleasure, man. Have a good one, too.

 

 All right. Thanks.

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *