<p>Is there such a thing? If your son/daughter will not have car and will only be driving on breaks etc. I may be totally wrong, but I feel like sometime in my CC past I read something about this, but can't locate any info now....</p>
<p>It depends on your insurance company. Ours allows up to place the car in "storage" while our son is at school - and we pay no premium for that time. We bring it back to active status on long breaks (like the winter break). If he's home for a few days, we just have him use one of our cars (he is insured under our policy for driving our cars). It saves us LOTS of money. Of course, we can't drive the car at all. We just start it up once a week and put a special additive in the oil tank.</p>
<p>abasket:</p>
<p>This is a common question. There is a thread in the Parents' Caf</p>
<p>insurance companies all have different policies. We had to live more than 100 miles from campus to have a discount--we were only 80 miles away---oh, well.</p>
<p>some insurance companies offer 'good student' discount too.</p>
<p>Our insurance company gave us a big discount when D went off to college more than 100 miles away. That was their cut-off. Definitely check with your insurance company as everybody else has suggested.</p>
<p>We have Geico in NY. S was on "away" status last year,we had to prove he was more than 500 miles away and taking at least 12 credits.They asked for documentation each semester. We saved substantially.
We just had to put him back on regular status as he's taking a car with him next year.Since he had an accident right after starting to drive in HS, his rate is really high with a surcharge.Opened the new bill today,it wasnt for the faint of heart LOL. Surcharge will expire after 30 months of a clean record and hes up to 16 months.</p>
<p>We also had away status for our daughter when she was at school without a car. She was still covered when home for holidays and breaks driving her car (which is in my name.) She would have also been covered if she had driven a classmates car at school, but we told her not to drive someone's car.</p>
<p>We saved a nice amount!</p>
<p>Ok, I'll check the parent cafe thread and will have to call our insurance company and just ask. We do already receive the "good student" discount - had to fill a form out and have a couple of people from her school sign it - her principal and GC. </p>
<p>Her school is only about 75 miles away, but it doesn't hurt to ask...</p>
<p>Just got an email from my auto insurance company today after asking about this exact issue. I live in Mass, my son is going to school in PA. They said I could take him completely off the insurance, Which would require a form signed by me and him, but he would have no coverage at all. Then I have to notify them when he's home (if he plans to drive AT ALL) to put him back on the policy, and resubmit the form to take him off again when he leaves. She said it would make my billing all screwy but it would save me money (if he were completely off the insurance all year I'd save $1300). What a pain, but I think the savings will make it worthwhile.</p>
<p>^^This is what we've been doing; it's not that much of a pain. H would fill out the form and fax it back, and S would be automatically on our insurance.</p>
<p>Momneedsadvice, that is exactly what I do with my daughter. When I add her, they send me a form to sign and to fax back and then they take her off again when she goes back. It sounds like a big hassle when you start doing it, but it's very simple once you've done it for a while. The most important thing is that the agent understands and is on top of it. Also, you need to remember to call before he comes home. Try to do it about a week before he returns to allow them a nice amount of time to take care of the paperwork.</p>
<p>Call your insurance company early. I just switched insurance companies because of this very reason. </p>
<p>My old company (Erie) said that they would give a discount when DS went off to school. It turned out to be only about $200 off of the rate for our third car, or about a ten percent discount. I was expecting a much bigger break, so I priced GEICO on-line. With him away at school, the rate on the third car dropped to $350, and I saved about $900 per year. </p>
<p>After I switched, though, I lost my multi-policy discount on the homeowners and umbrella policies, which went up by a couple of hundred dollars.</p>
<p>Interestingly, our insurer is taking an entirely different approach. D is not on the policy. The insurer said she'd be treated as an occassional driver (much like when you lend your car to a friend) when she comes home for those short breaks.</p>
<p>If she were to ever return again for a full summer, I'm sure we'd put her on the policy. But that does not look likely to happen. We'll deal with that if it does.</p>
<p>I'd like to hear from those of you with USAA auto insurance. I've gotten conflicting info from them. When I first called to ask about taking S off policy while he's away at school, I was told that we could delete him as a driver and save $1800/year but would have to notify USAA every time he comes back home for break or vacation and add him back as a driver. Our premium would increase for the period of time he was home.</p>
<p>Then I got an email from them saying that I was given incorrect information and that we could NOT delete him as a driver because the terms of their contract with us (the auto ins. policy) states that all licensed dependent drivers must be covered. They said they would give us the "away at school discount", but that only reduced our premium by around $700/year. However, he will be covered if he drives a car at college, even someone else's car. </p>
<p>I know there are CCers with USAA - how do they handle your student's insurance while they're away at college?</p>
<p>D will be 350 miles away and her car will stay here. Our insurance agent checked and the premium went from $1450 to @ $1000 a year - savings of $450. I thought it would be more, maybe 1/2 premium reduction, but that was not the case.</p>
<p>We're on Geico also - kids are covered and listed on our policy all year around, but we don't pay anything for them (even in the summer), because they are enrolled in college more than 150 miles from home without their own vehicle. They are covered if they drive our or other people's vehicles, and we don't have to put them on, take them off, put them on, take them off every holiday! :)</p>
<p>Our son was added to our policy just this year. I believe he IS required to be on the policy, if he drives at all, which he does.</p>
<p>We may have a bit of a different situation, though. Because we live in Austin & he will be at Rice, he probably will be coming home fairly often & will want to be driving whenever he's here (the girlfriend will be here - at UT). </p>
<p>Even if we weren't required to cover him, we would because of this AND because he is the one paying the premium.</p>
<p>Another happy GEICO customer. On the policy, so she's covered for incidental driving using someone else's car and when she's home for breaks, no on-again off-again jumping through hoops, and a nicely reduced rate.</p>
<p>Side note: she's fine for highway driving in 95 percent of the country but while she's a rising college senior, I'm just now easing in to about letting D solo on the LA freeways without someone riding shotgun. This summer is the first time that she's had a chance to drive freeways a lot and she's gotten the hang of merging and changing lanes in tight traffic at freeway speeds without being unsafe.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Interestingly, our insurer is taking an entirely different approach. D is not on the policy. The insurer said she'd be treated as an occassional driver (much like when you lend your car to a friend) when she comes home for those short breaks.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Ditto with our insurance company--State Farm</p>