Divorce sucks nine times out of ten, and it sucks even more when kids are involved. When both parents want to be actively involved in a child’s life they have to continue to interact at least every now and then. In successful cases, parents are able to put aside their difference and co-parent effectively together.
One thing divorced parents often forget to think about is their child’s car insurance. Whether parents divorce when their kid already has a driver’s license or their offspring comes of age years later, there are some things divorced parents need to consider when it comes to their kids driving. Here are the general guidelines.
Let’s establish first that a teen driver is going to save a lot of money being on a parent’s insurance policy. Since teens from the ages of 16 to 19 are much more likely to be in accidents, putting a teen on their own insurance plan costs an average of over $3,000 more a year. And don’t even think about not getting insurance for them. Aside from the legal trouble that could land your family in, see the note again about how much more likely teens are to be involved in accidents.
There are ways to reduce teen auto insurance, which you should look into doing no matter what the situation is. Completing a driver training course, maintaining a B average (in high school or college) and attending college 100 or more miles from home without a car will all help lower the insurance rate.
With that out of the way, you need to take a look at your kid’s situation to decide what to do with their auto insurance. Let’s take a look at the possibilities.
Primary Custody
If you have primary custody of your child and they spend most of their time at your house, they should be on your insurance policy.
Joint Custody
If you and your spouse have joint custody and the child drives cars from both houses pretty evenly, your child should probably be on both parents’ insurance policies.
Your Kid Has a Car
The above scenarios assume that your kid will be driving a car owned by one of the parents. If, however, your kid has their own car, it’s a little trickier because different insurers have different rules. As we already mentioned, it is much less expensive for the kid to be on a shared insurance plan, so the question to ask is which parent’s policy should they be on. Call 336-540-0463 to discuss the particulars of that.