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How to handle teenager on insurance? - excluded operator, or let them drive it?

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niceInBoston

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My son got his driver's license recently. I don't own a Lucid yet, but was wondering if anyone else has young drivers living with them, and whether they sign an "excluded operator" agreement with their insurance company to avoid a higher insurance payment? Or do they just let them drive the car?

When I researched it, the IIHS noted that they don't recommend high horsepower vehicles for teens. Though almost any electric vehicle would qualify as having a high horsepower-to-weight ratio.
 
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I have teenage drivers at home. They are excluded from the Lucid. So the young drivers do not influence my insurance on the Lucid. Only my wife and myself are authorized, insured driverers.
 
niceInBoston said:
My son got his driver's license recently. I don't own a Lucid yet, but was wondering if anyone else has young drivers living with them, and whether they sign an "excluded operator" agreement with their insurance company to avoid a higher insurance payment? Or do they just let them drive the car?

When I researched it, the IIHS noted that they don't recommend high horsepower vehicles for teens. Though almost any electric vehicle would qualify as having a high horsepower-to-weight ratio.
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I suspect it's going to depend largely on the insurer. I have a teen driver and I'm currently insured with Progressive. They have an "excluded operator" provision that can be used but it excludes the teen on ALL vehicles. That's likely not going to be an option for you and it wasn't for me. And as such, the insurer rates the teen based on the most expensive vehicle to insure which in my case was the Lucid. I do not allow my teen to drive my Lucid but in the eyes of Progressive he's an insured driver and I pay accordingly. I doubt they're an outlier in this regard but don't know for sure.

Adding, from Progressive's website:

What is an excluded driver on a car insurance policy?​

An excluded driver is a person in your household who has been explicitly excluded from coverage under your car insurance policy. Their name will show as "excluded" on your policy, and they won’t be insured to drive any vehicles on your policy. A rated driver, on the other hand, is a member of your household who is of driving age and covered by the policy when using the insured car(s). Not all states allow policyholders to exclude household members from coverage.
 
Northpointe said:
I suspect it's going to depend largely on the insurer. I have a teen driver and I'm currently insured with Progressive. They have an "excluded operator" provision that can be used but it excludes the teen on ALL vehicles. That's likely not going to be an option for you and it wasn't for me. And as such, the insurer rates the teen based on the most expensive vehicle to insure which in my case was the Lucid. I do not allow my teen to drive my Lucid but in the eyes of Progressive he's an insured driver and I pay accordingly. I doubt they're an outlier in this regard but don't know for sure.
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We have Chubb for all of our cars except for our tesla which has tesla insurance. Chubb lets us exclude our teens from the Lucid and Rivian but they can drive our other cars insured by Chubb.
 
AZLucidGuy said:
We have Chubb for all of our cars except for our tesla which has tesla insurance. Chubb lets us exclude our teens from the Lucid and Rivian but they can drive our other cars insured by Chubb.
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Good to know. My teen currently has his learner's permit in AZ. He's on track to have his license next month. Given Progressive's stance I'm going to be looking at other insurers. Of course I'll have to look at my homeowners and umbrella as well as it's all bundled.
 
Thanks for this thread
So much better than what follows after handing an M series to a 16 yo to drive to school.
 
For the price of insuring the teen for a year or so, I would highly recommend Radford Racing or another driving school that has an Advanced Teen Driving program.

Not only will it help the teen for the rest of their lives, it will provide the parents with the confidence that their teen driver has encountered and learn to manage issues that simply aren't covered in normal driver's education programs.

You can tell someone about oversteer, correction by steering into the slide and experiencing heavy braking - but, if you haven't done it, it's all theory and never practiced.

Help your kid - have them practice how to get out of trouble - it will be used at least once. And, it might that one time that it saves their life.
 
tmichael said:
For the price of insuring the teen for a year or so, I would highly recommend Radford Racing or another driving school that has an Advanced Teen Driving program.

Not only will it help the teen for the rest of their lives, it will provide the parents with the confidence that their teen driver has encountered and learn to manage issues that simply aren't covered in normal driver's education programs.

You can tell someone about oversteer, correction by steering into the slide and experiencing heavy braking - but, if you haven't done it, it's all theory and never practiced.

Help your kid - have them practice how to get out of trouble - it will be used at least once. And, it might that one time that it saves their life.
Click to expand...
I recall there was also some way to get a reduced insurance premium if you convinced them they passed a defensive driving and advanced driving course...
 
Thanks to everyone for the responses. It’s helpful to know what others are doing with teen drivers in the house and 800 hp in the driveway. We only own two cars so it’s a bit painful to exclude him from one of them. (I suppose the two best solutions are: downgrade the nice car to a normal one so my son can drive it; or, buy a third car)
 
niceInBoston said:
Thanks to everyone for the responses. It’s helpful to know what others are doing with teen drivers in the house and 800 hp in the driveway. We only own two cars so it’s a bit painful to exclude him from one of them. (I suppose the two best solutions are: downgrade the nice car to a normal one so my son can drive it; or, buy a third car)
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Cheap car for the new driver
Excellent brakes and a wee engine
:)
 
Aka-none said:
Cheap car for the new driver
Excellent brakes and a wee engine
:)
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Exactly. We've got a teen that's going to be licensed soon and we're looking at things like used Nissan Leaf or Chevy Bolt and the like. Not too fast, enough range to get her where she needs to go but not so far to get her in to much trouble, etc.
 
Aka-none said:
Cheap car for the new driver
Excellent brakes and a wee engine
:)
Click to expand...
This. We give our teens hand-me-downs and haven’t traded in our last few vehicles just for this purpose. My teen has front bumper scrapes, wheel curb rash, rear bumper dent by backing into a stationary object, and a side mirror replacement. We pay the other party out of pocket so that insurance rates don’t skyrocket - we chose high deductible and use insurance only for catastrophes. I’d buy them a cheap used car if we didn’t have the hand-me-downs.

I’m not letting them drive my Gravity unless it’s an emergency!
 
illopp00 said:
I recall there was also some way to get a reduced insurance premium if you convinced them they passed a defensive driving and advanced driving course...
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Not all insurance agencies give a discount, depends on state mandated law. Insurance companies don’t like to put money on the table unless forced to.
 
Saksak said:
This. We give our teens hand-me-downs and haven’t traded in our last few vehicles just for this purpose. My teen has front bumper scrapes, wheel curb rash, rear bumper dent by backing into a stationary object, and a side mirror replacement. We pay the other party out of pocket so that insurance rates don’t skyrocket - we chose high deductible and use insurance only for catastrophes. I’d buy them a cheap used car if we didn’t have the hand-me-downs.

I’m not letting them drive my Gravity unless it’s an emergency!
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Yep, very high deductible for home and car. Only claim for catastrophic events. They claw money back for small claims.
 
Saksak said:
This. We give our teens hand-me-downs and haven’t traded in our last few vehicles just for this purpose. My teen has front bumper scrapes, wheel curb rash, rear bumper dent by backing into a stationary object, and a side mirror replacement. We pay the other party out of pocket so that insurance rates don’t skyrocket - we chose high deductible and use insurance only for catastrophes. I’d buy them a cheap used car if we didn’t have the hand-me-downs.

I’m not letting them drive my Gravity unless it’s an emergency!
Click to expand...

Just curious - what would be the limit at which you would file a claim, vs paying cash to the other party? I don’t have a good sense of the extent to which insurance rates would go up in case of an accident (ie, what the breakeven point is)
 
niceInBoston said:
My son got his driver's license recently. I don't own a Lucid yet, but was wondering if anyone else has young drivers living with them, and whether they sign an "excluded operator" agreement with their insurance company to avoid a higher insurance payment? Or do they just let them drive the car?

When I researched it, the IIHS noted that they don't recommend high horsepower vehicles for teens. Though almost any electric vehicle would qualify as having a high horsepower-to-weight ratio.
Click to expand...
I can’t imagine someone letting me drive one of these things when I was 16 or 17. I would have wrecked it for sure with the HP.
 
niceInBoston said:
Just curious - what would be the limit at which you would file a claim, vs paying cash to the other party? I don’t have a good sense of the extent to which insurance rates would go up in case of an accident (ie, what the breakeven point is)
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If it wasn’t your fault, your premiums will not go up, at least in CA.
 
This is my daily PSA - no matter what you decide to do with your insurance, if you have kids on your policy and they drive a beater car, ask your insurance agent to give you an ID card for them that lists only their cars, not yours too. I found this out the hard way when my daughter was in a very minor lovetap fender bender, and when she exchanged insurance info with the other driver, they saw that we had 2 Porsches and 2 BMWs on the policy in addition to her Nissan Juke. Amazing how suddenly necks hurt, backs were injured, etc…..my agent then sent me ID cards that listed our drivers with just the Nissan on it to avoid this in the future.
 
niceInBoston said:
Just curious - what would be the limit at which you would file a claim, vs paying cash to the other party? I don’t have a good sense of the extent to which insurance rates would go up in case of an accident (ie, what the breakeven point is)
Click to expand...
No idea. The one time was under my deductible and the other party was happy with cash for some minor scratched paint. I hope I never have to decide!
 
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