How Much Does It Cost to Add a Teenager to Car Insurance?

There’s no way around it: adding your son or daughter to your plan will cost you money. Learn more about the average cost to add a teenager to car insurance below. 

Adding a teenager to your car insurance can cost thousands of dollars per year. From ages 16 to 18, a young driver’s premiums can easily exceed $2,000 annually. Adding a teen raises rates because teens are the least experienced, most accident-prone demographic of drivers.

Teenagers are the most costly group to insure because statistics show that teens are more likely to get into an accident than older, more experienced drivers. As a result, car insurance carriers charge teens higher premiums to offset their increased chances of accidents and claims.

Sixteen-year-olds have the highest premiums of any driver on the road. On average, coverage for a 16-year-old can cost $2,661, with rates slightly higher for males than females. Young drivers, especially males, are more likely to speed, drive at night, and drive recklessly than older drivers. They have no favorable driving history since they have no experience, so insurers must charge them more for coverage. 

Your driving record is the best indication of your behaviors and tendencies as a driver. Insurance companies lean on it heavily when determining premiums. Since young, new drivers have no records yet, it’s easy and safe for insurers to side with the stats that say teens are prone to accidents and dangerous driving.

The average premium for a 17-year-old is $2,208, while the average premium for an 18-year-old is $1,910. As you can see, the average cost to add a teenager to car insurance is high, but it slowly declines as the person ages. It eventually normalizes once a driver reaches their mid-20s and beyond. 

Once a driver reaches this age, it’s easier for them to start garnering many discounts of their own, like claims-free, safe driving, marriage discounts, and more. And hopefully, the driver will get their own vehicle and their own coverage around this time.

A child can stay on their parent’s car insurance as long as they live with their parents or don’t own their own cars. When someone gets an auto insurance policy, the provider requires all eligible drivers in the household to be listed on the plan. 

If this includes your teen, they should be on your policy. Other than going off to college, when a teen moves out and buys their own vehicle, they can look into getting their own insurance.

Unfortunately, adding your teen to your car insurance can raise your premiums by 50% to 100%, if not more. Your rate can easily double when adding a new teen driver. Adding a teenager to car insurance can add hundreds of dollars to your monthly premium, which can easily translate to over a thousand dollars per year. 

For example, earlier, we said that the average premium for a 16-year-old is $2,661. Using this number, your insurance could go up $221 per month after adding a teenager.

If this seems like an unattractive surge, it’s still likely better than your teen getting their own insurance policy. If your teen lives in your house and has their own car, it’ll still likely be cheaper (for your kid) to add them to your policy than for your teen to get separate coverage. Some states allow you to get your car insurance under 18, but insurers usually require a parent or guardian to co-sign in this case anyway.

This means even if your teen has their own car and policy that you’ve co-signed, you could still be financially responsible after an accident that exceeds their coverage limits if you’re their legal guardian or if the car is in your name.

Additionally, rates for a teen driver with their own policy would be astronomical, to say the least. Even with the state minimum required amount of car insurance, young drivers almost always pay more than older drivers for coverage.

While adding any teen driver to car insurance will raise premiums, it’s still cheaper to add your son or daughter to your car insurance than for them to get their own policy. 

As we mentioned, adding your son or daughter to your insurance is a favorable alternative for your child. If they got a policy on their own, they’d pay extremely high premiums, which would likely be a greater financial burden for them. 

Also, having two different car insurance policies in one house may complicate billing in the household. And, you’d lose out on a multi-car discount for the policies.

The good news is that the cost of adding a teenager to car insurance gradually becomes more affordable over time. Rates steadily decrease from age 16 until about age 25, where they remain largely consistent until your senior years. For example, premiums for a 21-year-old driver average about $916, which is a 65% decrease from the time they were 16.

Additionally, by putting your teen on your policy, whatever discounts you have can factor into your rate to reduce the impact of the overall price increase. If you got a separate policy for your teen, they wouldn’t have your discounts to help them.