<p>We have Unitran. Our kids got an “away at school” discount for being over 100 miles from home. I think it saved us about $200 a year.</p>
<p>But oddly…DD is in the Peace Corp. we asked to have her removed from our policy for the two years…and the company had issues with that request because we have a third car. Ahem…she is in AFRICA, and is not allowed to drive anything…Nevermind our cars! They finally agreed to remove her, but that only saved us $400 a year. Odd.</p>
<p>I just today cancelled my auto policies that I’ve had for about 25 years because of this. We had Farmers Insurance. DD (18) is 350 miles away at school and when I called to see if we could get a discount as she doesn’t have a car with her, I was told that she already has a good student discount and she can’t get that and the faraway student discount. Even with the good student discount our rates doubled on both cars when we added dd. It really annoyed me that she only applied for one of the discounts as I don’t see any reason she can’t be both a good student and too far away to drive a car very often. </p>
<p>I checked around and found that AAA would give us a discount for her being away at school, and our rates dropped almost by half on each car. She is listed as a driver on the cars, just not here to drive much, so we don’t have to reinstate her every summer. I actually asked Farmers if they would handle it that way, but they said underwriting would add her back if we took her off.</p>
<p>State Farm’s distance is 100 miles away. D2’s school maps out at 103 miles from our house!</p>
<p>We have Progressive and they stink wrt this. S is 1200 miles away and all the cars stayed at home. When we added S to policy our premium went up $3000. When we inquired about keeping him on the policy and getting a discount for him being at school the discount was $300. We took him off. We will add him back for winter break and summer break.</p>
<p>I wonder if part of the problem for the OP is that there are 4 cars and 4 drivers. Our insurance insists all the cars must have someone listed as a primary driver, even if they are away at school. One of our vehicles is a pop-up camper, and they listed someone as a primary on that! I called them on that one, and they said it was how they do things? Weird!</p>
<p>Liberty Mutual has a nice discount for > 100 miles away.</p>
<p>We have always had one car per driver. Our company gave the away at school discount anyway. Our kids also got the good student discount. God knows what our insurance bill would have been without those discounts!</p>
<p>My insurance agent told us that if we had a third car, they automatically assume that the student is driving it every day, and the rates go way up.</p>
<p>We have State Farm and do get the student discount for him being far away at college. I’m not sure of what distance is necessary because our two kids that didn’t have cars went to college around 7 hours (or more) away, but I imagine the required amount is less then that. We also get the good student discount, and the steer clear discount from this same student in college. I have other friends who live near me that don’t have State Farm and they do NOT get the discount. Our student is rated on one of the cars.</p>
<p>GEICO. Distance > 300 miles. Significant discount, about 40% off. </p>
<p>I also told insurance company since child will be away during school year the annual mileage of her car drops down to about 3000 miles/year.</p>
<p>We have Chubb Insurance. Just got my policy amendment - the “away at college without a car” discount is $494 a year for us. This is on top of the normal good student discount we have. DS normally takes his car to school but is in Europe this semester - he definitely is more than 100 miles from home! </p>
<p>Chubb will never be the cheapest policy, but it is universally considered the “gold standard” when comparing coverages and policy terms. If you drive a more expensive car (Mercedes, Lexus, BMW etc.), where you wouldn’t want knockoff parts and might need Agreed Value coverage, its worth looking into to see what the cost differntial with a standard policy is.</p>
<p>MetLife here. Always put our kids on the “occasional driver” plan, as well as “good student” discounts. :)</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for posting. My friend certainly has enough info to share with their current insurer in hopes of getting them to reconsider.</p>
<p>We had American Family with our older kids, they were occasional drivers, dropped our rate on one car about $60/month or so (it’s been a while).</p>
<p>State Farm, here as well. Not sure of the current discount, but our previous carrier, CNA, only dropped the premium about $75.00 when our oldest was away at school (+/_2008?).</p>
<p>Our insurance was about $1000 for 3 cars and just H & I as drivers. Both Island Insurance & Liberty Mutual refused to put either of my kids on the policy, as both kids were attending school 2500 miles from our house. </p>
<p>When we send a car to D, our policy will drop because only 2 cars will be insured & we will get D her own policy based on where the car is garaged, that she will pay for. Because LA is more expensive, she is under 26 & has only had her license a short while, her policy will initially be high @ $900 for 6 months. Hopefully it will drop as she gets more experience and keeps a good record. We are getting high limits on all the cars–$300k/500K per accident, plus a $2M umbrella. It’s cheaper than getting more auto insurance w/o umbrella & we want to have sufficient coverage.</p>
<p>We were able to get a reduction with Allstate, but he was 1,000+ miles away. He had the car for his second year, so it went back up. We did see a decrease after he turned 21 though.</p>
<p>Liberty Mutual. I take my D off the policy while she’s away without access to the car. I put her back on when she comes to visit, and if it’s less than 2 weeks or so there’s no premium for her. </p>
<p>Saved about $500 per year.</p>
<p>Another one insured by Amica. They will remove S from policy 2X a year saving us hundreds each month he is off policy. Unable to list him as an occasional driver when he is home because we have 3 cars and 3 drivers so each person automatically gets assigned a car. I am OK with that because to be truthful we only have the 3rd car so he has something to drive.</p>
<p>S is 180 miles away with car at home and Erie gives a $440 discount for the entire year. If he takes the car with him next year, the price will go back up but it’s a nice break.</p>