<p>My son is 20 years old, and is currently listed as "a male driver under age 21 attending school over 100 miles" in our State Farm Insurance policy.
His name does not appear as an official insured.</p>
<p>It was great to get a considerable discount under this discount option (the additional premium was less than $100 per six months), but I am now trying to figure our if our policy would cover his renting a car in CA.</p>
<p>I spoke with our agent whose answer was yes, but there were some gray areas.
First she said, our policy will cover any damages made to the rental car, but any damages made to the other car should be covered by a rental car company's insurance.
However, I checked that the company in CA doesn't offer any insurance for students under 21 and my son should have his own liability/collision coverage.
When I came back to our agent, her answer was yes, but she added that it would depend on the CA law.</p>
<p>So, here is my question to you experienced parents.
With an auto insurance policy with full liability and collision coverages where my son is covered under a college student discount more than 100 miles home, do you think that our policy will cover any damage/loss associated with his rental?</p>
<p>I am concerned since what our agent "told" me would not have a legal value and I couldn't find any central State Farm phone number to ask this question.
Any experience with any insurance companies and/or advice will be appreciated.</p>
<p>I asked our insurance company the same question for my daughter in Australia for a semester. The answer was a vague “no.” I asked what happens if she were to drive someone else’s car, she said someone else’s insurance should cover her. I also asked about a rental. She said the rental insurance should cover it. She said our insurance covers our cars and people listed. Our D is covered when she is home driving our cars.</p>
<p>Quite honestly, I’m surprised ANY rental agency would rent to someone under the age of 21. Most agencies I’ve rented from actually require the lead driver to be 25.</p>
<p>msmayor: That’s not really true. They usually impose a surcharge for drivers under 25 (exorbitant, too; $25?). However, there are ways to get around this – one of them is to use USAA, who waives this fee.</p>
<p>My son’s college has a special rental program on campus that rents a car to those under 21, but requires to bring our own insurance.</p>
<p>I started to look for a Zipcar program, which seems a lot simpler.
My son likes to rent a big car for his move, but perhaps he needs to work with a small car among their Zipcar options.</p>
<p>I know that insurance from the rental car company is very high, however, not so high that if something did happen you and your son would have some protection. Your situation happened couple of times with DS. I told him to buy the rental insurance because he hit me on short notice. He investigated his credit card rental coverage.</p>
<p>Thanks undecided…that’s something I was not aware of; especially the USAA angle. That’s my auto insurer and while I’ve known that rental discounts are available, I had no idea they arranged for rentals and could get fees like that waived.</p>