I feel like them listing your unlicensed daughter as an excluded driver is a mistake. She doesn’t have a license or permit so she is not a driver. I would call back and make them remove her from your policy as she is in no way an eligible driver and won’t be driving your vehicles.
Ha that happen to me - I had a son who had no license living at home and should be excluded. And the insurance people are all ‘well he could drive it’ - alluding to him basically taking the car without permission or license. I couldn’t believe it. Then I pointed out it was a standard transmission and since he can’t drive the odds of him getting very far were not good. Screw those people man.
When I did call them back asking to explain the increase and they told me it was from her, their reasoning is that she is of driving age and because she is in the same household, she has access to our vehicles to do as she pleases. If she gets her permit, it will decrease my premium by $392, which makes no sense because then I will actually be paying less than I was originally by ADDING A TEENAGER to my policy.
By that logic you should have had her listed as an expired driver as soon as she was old enough to reach the car keys. Not having a license is not having a license. What’s the difference between a 13 year old driving illegally and a 17 year old driving illegally? Find a new carrier or at least a new agent.
So they are making an assumption with no proof of malice and charging you for it?
That's like going to Applebee's and getting a bathroom cleaning fee because they think your going to blow up the toilet because you had the soup.
I'd talk to someone higher up, because that doesn't sound right at all
Car insurance applies to the car, not the policy holder. Anyone except an excluded driver will be covered in the event of an accident, or at least that's how it is for me with State farm and previously with GEICO. Insurance companies assume everyone of driving age at the same address the vehicle is registered at will have access to it and need to be considered when determining the risk they pose. Exclusions are supposed to be a way to reduce premiums by promising certain high risk individuals at the same address aren't going to have access to the vehicle.
I think OP's rate increase was probably a combination of the son driving more than they guestimated and inflation, since it only increased 4.8%, which is about what my own policy just increased on my last renewal. There's a good chance the insurance company wasn't even aware of the the 18 year old and OP would have been in for a big surprise when she started getting in the databases they use to automatically detect who lives where.
As ridiculous as it is, why not have her get her permit? She doesn't have to use it or pass a driving test for the permit. You and she can both understand that it's only to save some money and laugh about it, toss it in a drawer and forget about it until she is ready.
Oh we are! We talked about it last week, but her SS has been misplaced and replacing it as an adult with no form of ID is a lot more difficult and she has to have that to get her permit.
[https://www.ssa.gov/number-card/replace-card](https://www.ssa.gov/number-card/replace-card)
Click the "Answer a few questions" button.
I went with what I thought might be your answers given the information you provided in your posts. Here is one of the options I'd try if I was in your position.
**Medical record** from a clinic, doctor, or hospital. We do not accept hospital bills, payment receipts, or admission letters. The document must show:
* Applicant's name, and
* Age or date of birth, and
* A treatment date within the last 2 years, and
* A signature or stamp from the medical provider.
Progressive is terrible for young drivers. My mom had Progressive when I started driving and it more than doubled her premium. I got my own minimal insurance and it was way cheaper than what Progressive wanted to charge even with all the available discounts.
If she gets a permit, the company will assume (rightly or wrongly) that she will eventually want her license, and to do that she will need and want to *learn* to drive by taking driver's ed and practicing with a \*hopefully\* competent adult driver.
Without a permit and the accompanying practice, she would be more of a risk.
Exactly, but having her as an excluded driver made my policy go up $384; getting her permitted and not excluded reduces my policy by $392 making my policy $8 less than when I started by adding a teenage driver. None of that computes. But I guess my biggest FU of all was assuming anything insurance related would be logic based.
Removing her as an excluded driver might save you $392, but once again Progressive isn't giving you the whole picture.
The reason why this doesn't make sense is because... It doesn't. You might save $392/mo on the excluded driver fee, but they haven't told you what they're going to charge you extra to add a new teenage driver to the policy...
They're going to be insuring an entirely new driver, putting more miles on more vehicles. Yes, you'll save $392/mo, but they're going to bill you $500-600/mo in insurance for a teenage driver and you're going to be down an additional hundred or two per month than you were before.
Do you really think Progressive is going to make it cheaper for them to insure a driver than for them to not insure a driver?
They might not be giving me the whole picture, but that’s all I have to go on. When I called back after I saw my updated payment schedule and asked for the breakdown of what my increases were, they said $384/mo was adding her as an excluded un-permitted driver. Then she went even further and told me what it would be to have her added (not excluded) as an un-permitted driver would be $1200/mo. Getting her permit and not having her excluded would make my policy go down by $392/mo (after the $384/mo increase) resulting in $8 less than before I inadvertently caused my policy to go up.
Which is what makes no sense and I had her confirm it multiple times because I was not believing what I was hearing.
I have Progressive and a teenage, permitted driver. Basically, you’re taking the responsibility for her when she’s driving. You’re in charge because you’re teaching her to drive. She isn’t allowed to drive on her own, therefore, she isn’t fully responsible for the vehicle. You need to call them every time your policy renews, or they’ll assume she got her license and will add her as a driver. My payment didn’t change when my son got his permit, thankfully.
Ah, ok. Sounds like you covered your bases.
Sometimes pricing can be weird. When I had my own insurance as a young male, it was cheaper for me to add a second insured driver. My wife was female, and older than me, so she knocked off the penalty I had for being a male under 26, which was more expensive than adding her as a 27 year old woman.
Insurance companies do this so when they do get their permit or drivers license you have to call them and let them know. At the company I used to work for, anyone is fully insured if they drive your car. There were too many instances where people wouldn’t list all of the people in their household and then those drivers would cause an accident and the insurance company was on the hook.
I had an instance where an older mother insisted that her son that was around 30 didn’t live in the house and she wanted him off her policy because he was an excluded driver.
It turns out he had 3 DUI’s and couldn’t get insurance and he wanted to drive her car. We told her that we would been proof that he has a different address like a bill with his name and address. She never brought it so he stayed on the policy. He had an accident a week later and wanted us to pay for everything. We told her to pound sand.
> She never brought it so he stayed on the policy. He had an accident a week later and wanted us to pay for everything. We told her to pound sand.
So... the insurer you worked for was making her pay for the son to be on her insurance because she couldn't prove the son moved out but then denied the claim when he crashed her car?
Is that due to the logic described elsewhere in the thread about 'having access to the keys' just because he lived there?
I guess I'm not familiar with that logic: someone can have an excluded driver...as in: explicitly NOT supposed to be driving the insured vehicle...but they still have to pay for them because they live at your house.
It kind of makes sense but seems a little sketchy...
No.
An excluded driver on your policy in my state doesn’t cost anything. She was trying to NOT pay for him to be on the policy by saying he no longer lives in the house. If he was a diver on the policy, she would have been cancelled because we wouldn’t take that risk. I’m guessing his rate would have been thousands of dollars a month.
Yeah she shouldn't be excluded if she doesn't have a license. She shouldn't be rated as a driver and assigned to any vehicle in the first place so there's no need to exclude her from any vehicles.
If she's not getting her license within 6 months or less she shouldn't be in the auto insurance household in the system. Most policies are 6 to 12 month policies in a lot of states. If she is getting her license in 6 months or less she can be in the auto household system, but she'll just be rated as a non-driver with no driver tenure.
Her name would sit there doing nothing in the system just being a good lil guy not causing any problems until she gets her license.
When I got married and tried to add my hasband and his vehicle to my policy, Progressive tried to make me add my 67yo mother in law as an excluded driver - which would have almost doubled the cost.
I get that her name is also on the title of my husband's car (he bought it in college, and needed a cosigner), but she lives halfway across the country and will not be driving the car.
Yeah. I wouldn’t try to get a deal from your current insurance. You should have been taking to a NEW insurance company or in my case an insurance broker. They take your information and find the best deal for you.
A few months back I started the process of looking for a new company, I guess I hit up the market place and before I knew it I was getting calls and texts nonstop. I gave one company a chance to do my quote and it came out even higher than what I’m paying now…after the increase.
I’ve been in insurance for 15 years, personal for 4 years, and commercial for 11. Find an insurance broker to do the shopping for you with their availabile carriers and to get you a more competitive rate.
THIS. Yes this. We use a broker; we started with our agency \~15 years ago and it's been so nice not have to shop our "package" around on our own to get the best deal.
How is a broker paid? Assuming they get 10% commission on the policy, there just can't be enough money to justify more than 1 hour of work. If I hired one, I'd be looking at rates under $600 for a 6 month policy. Wouldn't they just reject my business in favor of someone insuring $200,000 worth of vehicles over 4 drivers with a few accidents?
They wouldn’t reject your business- they’ll get paid anywhere between 15%-20% commission depending on which carrier they place your business with. If they renew your insurance they get a renewal commission as well. So over time they keep making more & more commission as their book of business grows. Any good broker that wants to make money won’t turn you down.
Absolutely get a broker. I was getting cleaned out by progressive. I had bundled my home owners and car insurance with them for a very long time. Recently switched both but with two different companies bc bundling didn’t do shit for me anymore. I live in Florida… the insurance industry is a joke. I used Savvy (broker) and they found me a car insurance policy with Bristol West that cut out about $500 a month from my payment. That’s 4 adults (2 are my adult children) and 4 cars for $680 a month. But that’s only comprehensive on 2 of those vehicles and $1000 deductibles. I don’t care. We are in survival mode down here in the sunshine state.
Find yourself an actual insurance agent. One who represents multiple insurance companies. Then they can find you th e best price point. And then you won't get all those sales calls. You need to weigh cost vs service vs deductable.
Yep. They get their commission (I think about 3%, but don't quote me) every time you pay your premium, not like car salesmen, who only get one commission per car. So they like to collect a large stable of customers because by definition you are repeat business as long as you hold that policy. And if they give good service, you are likely to insure your next new car with them, or add homeowners, extra life insurance, or your teen who just got their learners in the future.
$800 a month??? Does someone in the family have a bad driving record? I have six cars, including two exotics and a Tesla (notoriously expensive to insure), and my insurance is around half of yours. I’d recommend shopping around, request a quote from every insurance company that serves your state. I do this every renewal period and I have received some ridiculously high quotes (like $1600 a month). The rates between two different insurance companies can vary extremely widely.
I'd shop around for more affordable insurance. That's crazy high. I'd also venture a guess that your non-driving daughter should not have been added as an excluded driver, as she is not, in fact, a driver.
We were with progressive years ago and they steadily kept raising their rates. We switched to geico for a long time, and when we added our son they jumped way up too. But when we started shopping around and decided to bundle our auto insurance with our homeowners insurance (connect by amfam), we ended up lowering our 6 month premiums by around $600 (which was slightly cheaper than what we'd been paying BEFORE we added our son as a driver).
What pisses me off the most is the person I was talking to never said anything about the rate increase. She was in the retention department and knew why I was calling.
Yup, same. They just put my roommate on my policy I'd opened online and wanted serious paperwork to get him off. The phone agent seemed shocked when I cancelled the policy lmao.
I went through an insurance broker. My current insurance merged with safe co and it was going to double. I'm 45 with no driving issues and I drive a 2002 truck. So I called my broker and she got me an identical policy for $600/year. I also bundled in my home and got a great deal on that as well.
That seems really high, way more than I pay in a high COL area for 11 motorcycles and 3 full coverage cars :/
I’ve always had USAA, their prices are good but not the lowest, but the customer service has always been insane.
literally go to esurance do everything online and only put you three on the list. I can almost gauruntee it wont be 800 dollars a month, that is literally insanity. I mean it depends on how good you want the insurance to be that is. If you deductables are like 500 for everything and you have towing, glass, etc, it gets expensive quick.
I mostly attributed this to my 23 year old son, before I added him, it was $220/mo with two vehicles with full coverage. After I added him and his full coverage vehicle, it went up to $660. Now I’ve bought another vehicle and it went up to over $800, so I dropped my old vehicle down to liability only to get it back under $800, only for it to go back up while trying to look for savings.
I had to go through a whole ridiculous phone call with Progressive a couple years ago to open a new policy (I was switching companies) because they put my roommate on the policy as "excluded" after I opened the policy online. They did their regular checking of the info I gave, saw he lived at the address and was licensed, so they just added him on their own.
He did not own a car or ever drive mine. He wasn't listed on our other roommates' policy. I do not care about the "well people in the same residence have access..." Nope, he did not have access to my vehicle. Him driving it would be theft.
They wanted notorized statements to remove him from the policy, and proof of insurance ON HIM elsewhere. The agent I spoke to over the phone kept trying to convince me to "just" leave him as an excluded, and was shocked when I cancelled the whole damn policy lmao.
I get their have their policies and requirements, but it felt shady and like they thought I was lying to them or something. I'm not dealing with that in my life.
Worked in insurance as an underwriter. Like some have said, knowing of an adult in the household is reason enough for them to add them, and as you noted, it is incredibly difficult to prove someone doesn't have a license or a permit. The easy way out is to offer you the exclusion letter.
That being said, they cannot legally charge you a price for a permit driver, so if you had her with a permit, she doesn't cost anything because legally she has to be in the car with a licensed driver and is treated as having your experience and skill. When she has a license, that's when they are able to rate her by herself because she can be by herself.
It's a whole bunch of crap of, you as the customer can only prove so much, and they as the insurance can only assume the worst risk, so they go for it and the ball is in your court to deal with the consequences.
Also i asume the timing of the changes is what caused this roller coaster of payments you have coming. It's a double edge sword deal, which is out of their control and meant to do a temporary "we will only adjust on a credit base for this time period and you'll pay the difference down the road" kind of thing. Some people appreciate it, some don't. On paper alone it looks dumb and scary though I agree.
(I know this is not a "seeking advice" post but here I am to say) switch auto insurance companies. Insurance companies could not raise rates fast enough during the pandemic to keep up with the rising costs of goods and services. Who knows if we have peaked yet, but I know there have been gnarly premium increases across the board. Except for that first year, where they offer you a discount for signing with them. Pain in the ass, but seems to be the best bang for your buck.
Get a quote from Erie Insurance! I had them for like 15 years, easily had the lowest rates of any non-exclusive provider (eg, USAA). They were excellent when I had an accident as well.
Progressive has a tendency to charge higher rates especially for multiple driver households. It doesn't cost you anything other than a few minutes to get a quote or go through an insurance broker to find the best insurance plans for you and you family. Especially with all of these rate increases that have been occurring since covid.
I assumed insurance in the US was similar in Canada, but this makes no sense to me. When my insurance company asked about excluded drivers, it was specifically those in the household with drivers licenses (active or suspended) that did not have their own policy - I've never heard of excluding someone who literally does not and has not had a license. Yikes!
Hey op, find an insurance broker. They do all this work for you, professionally and will save you money. Coworker taught me about them and said what the hell we will give it a shot and got us more coverage in our house and both vehicles and it’s cheaper
Progressive did the same thing to my fiancé. We have separate car insurance, and myself and my teenage son are on our own policy with a different company.
My fiancé randomly got something in the mail saying they’d added my son to his insurance policy since they live at the same address, and it’s their policy to have all drivers at the same residence on the policy. It was going to more than double his insurance rate. We had to send proof that my son is insured on a different policy in order for him to be excluded, which returned his rate to its previous total.
But aside from that - it seems like a shit company policy to have? So.. if you’re living with roommates you’d have to send verification of their insurance in order to exclude them from your policy? That just seems completely ludicrous.
Should seriously quote other companies... you pay more per month for 4 vehicles than I pay for full coverage for 2 SUVs that are still being paid for per YEAR. I pay $360 per 6 months. Every couple years I switch companies, lots of discounts that way for 0 deductible and still have accident forgiveness with max limits and roadside.
That’s absolutely nuts!!! You should not be paying that much. I have Travelers and I have 2 fully covered vehicles and my home insurance and the bill is around $250. I recommend Travelers, they don’t advertise much and rely on word of mouth to help keep costs lower. Definitely go somewhere else though. Progressive is screwing you badly.
I had Progressive for almost 20 years, with no accidents or tickets, and my premium just kept increasing. Six months ago I called StateFarm to get a quote. They told me that almost everyone’s insurance was going up so not to expect anything great, but it ended up being MUCH cheaper than Progressive was charging me. Just my personal experience.
I'd contact State Farm. We ran into something similar when our son (21m) got his license. The State Farm agent was able to re-bundle our car insurance so that our son was a driver on only one car (his). This reduced our premiums significantly.
Also have had extremely good luck with State Farm. No unreasonable rate hikes, very communicative when there are any (even small ones), have been paid in less than 3 business days on two different claim instances (thankfully the only ones I have ever had to make) - YMMV and I am sure it highly depends on your local agent, but can recommend.
Progressive sent me a notification that they were dropping me because I had my home and auto bundled together, and they will not insure my home because my furnace is about 30 years old. Doesn't matter that it works fine, and it's an electric furnace. So I switched to Geico and got a better rate.
OP, shop around for your insurance. In my experience you almost always get a better rate by switching to a new company.
Shop a different provider. Don't do online - deal with a real person. Your best bet is to find a broker who tries to win your business. I had a similar situation with progressive. Two cars, one younger driver, insurance kept going up even as cars got older. Eventually I got tired of it and called a few local brokers. Ended up switching to State Farm and reducing my cost by more than half. After three years with State Farm the price has not significantly increased.
Dude... You really need an insurance broker or call the zebra. Progressive is one of the most expensive and ridiculous companies when it comes to stuff like this. If you really want to save money switch companies. Your best bet will be a smaller company you've probably never heard of. The big name companies always have the highest rates for the same coverage.
Why are you even listing your daughter on your policy if she doesn't even have a permit and can't legally drive your cars? I wouldn't even bring her up when talking to a different insurance agent. Tell your current one to remove her entirely from your account or you will go with another company. Don't provide them with any information that isn't strictly necessary. That's like if I added my room mate to my policy when he has zero access to my vehicles.
Like I said in my post, the agent that was going over my policy was making sure all my info was accurate to try and lower my premium asked if I had any other drivers in the house that were of driving age. It didn’t occur to me to lie because I didn’t realize she was going to be added and since I’ve added and excluded my older daughter years prior on the same policy at no additional cost, when she told me she could exclude her, I had no idea my premium would increase BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T TELL ME.
That's the thing, she's not a driver. It's not lying, if she drove a car that would be illegal. It's totally unacceptable that they put her on the policy anyway. Your policy should be half of what it is now and I would bail to another company immediately.
I feel like them listing your unlicensed daughter as an excluded driver is a mistake. She doesn’t have a license or permit so she is not a driver. I would call back and make them remove her from your policy as she is in no way an eligible driver and won’t be driving your vehicles.
Ha that happen to me - I had a son who had no license living at home and should be excluded. And the insurance people are all ‘well he could drive it’ - alluding to him basically taking the car without permission or license. I couldn’t believe it. Then I pointed out it was a standard transmission and since he can’t drive the odds of him getting very far were not good. Screw those people man.
When I did call them back asking to explain the increase and they told me it was from her, their reasoning is that she is of driving age and because she is in the same household, she has access to our vehicles to do as she pleases. If she gets her permit, it will decrease my premium by $392, which makes no sense because then I will actually be paying less than I was originally by ADDING A TEENAGER to my policy.
By that logic you should have had her listed as an expired driver as soon as she was old enough to reach the car keys. Not having a license is not having a license. What’s the difference between a 13 year old driving illegally and a 17 year old driving illegally? Find a new carrier or at least a new agent.
So they are making an assumption with no proof of malice and charging you for it? That's like going to Applebee's and getting a bathroom cleaning fee because they think your going to blow up the toilet because you had the soup. I'd talk to someone higher up, because that doesn't sound right at all
Progressive does that . Happened to my brother it’s stupid
Happened to me too when we added my unlicensed daughter. Luckily, my bank sided with us and we got our $500 overcharge back.
One of the best analogies to describe car insurance I have ever seen. Take my upvote
Car insurance applies to the car, not the policy holder. Anyone except an excluded driver will be covered in the event of an accident, or at least that's how it is for me with State farm and previously with GEICO. Insurance companies assume everyone of driving age at the same address the vehicle is registered at will have access to it and need to be considered when determining the risk they pose. Exclusions are supposed to be a way to reduce premiums by promising certain high risk individuals at the same address aren't going to have access to the vehicle. I think OP's rate increase was probably a combination of the son driving more than they guestimated and inflation, since it only increased 4.8%, which is about what my own policy just increased on my last renewal. There's a good chance the insurance company wasn't even aware of the the 18 year old and OP would have been in for a big surprise when she started getting in the databases they use to automatically detect who lives where.
That sounds absolutely ridiculous. I would be dropping them and switching to a different insurance company asap.
As ridiculous as it is, why not have her get her permit? She doesn't have to use it or pass a driving test for the permit. You and she can both understand that it's only to save some money and laugh about it, toss it in a drawer and forget about it until she is ready.
Oh we are! We talked about it last week, but her SS has been misplaced and replacing it as an adult with no form of ID is a lot more difficult and she has to have that to get her permit.
Woof, good luck. You can't spell Bureaucracy without forms 42-F, J-13, and 42 (and only use blue pen).
They might be trying to commit voter fraud! Can't have those deceased undocumented immigrants voting in our elections! (/s)
[https://www.ssa.gov/number-card/replace-card](https://www.ssa.gov/number-card/replace-card) Click the "Answer a few questions" button. I went with what I thought might be your answers given the information you provided in your posts. Here is one of the options I'd try if I was in your position. **Medical record** from a clinic, doctor, or hospital. We do not accept hospital bills, payment receipts, or admission letters. The document must show: * Applicant's name, and * Age or date of birth, and * A treatment date within the last 2 years, and * A signature or stamp from the medical provider.
Progressive is terrible for young drivers. My mom had Progressive when I started driving and it more than doubled her premium. I got my own minimal insurance and it was way cheaper than what Progressive wanted to charge even with all the available discounts.
If she gets a permit, the company will assume (rightly or wrongly) that she will eventually want her license, and to do that she will need and want to *learn* to drive by taking driver's ed and practicing with a \*hopefully\* competent adult driver. Without a permit and the accompanying practice, she would be more of a risk.
Exactly, but having her as an excluded driver made my policy go up $384; getting her permitted and not excluded reduces my policy by $392 making my policy $8 less than when I started by adding a teenage driver. None of that computes. But I guess my biggest FU of all was assuming anything insurance related would be logic based.
Removing her as an excluded driver might save you $392, but once again Progressive isn't giving you the whole picture. The reason why this doesn't make sense is because... It doesn't. You might save $392/mo on the excluded driver fee, but they haven't told you what they're going to charge you extra to add a new teenage driver to the policy... They're going to be insuring an entirely new driver, putting more miles on more vehicles. Yes, you'll save $392/mo, but they're going to bill you $500-600/mo in insurance for a teenage driver and you're going to be down an additional hundred or two per month than you were before. Do you really think Progressive is going to make it cheaper for them to insure a driver than for them to not insure a driver?
They might not be giving me the whole picture, but that’s all I have to go on. When I called back after I saw my updated payment schedule and asked for the breakdown of what my increases were, they said $384/mo was adding her as an excluded un-permitted driver. Then she went even further and told me what it would be to have her added (not excluded) as an un-permitted driver would be $1200/mo. Getting her permit and not having her excluded would make my policy go down by $392/mo (after the $384/mo increase) resulting in $8 less than before I inadvertently caused my policy to go up. Which is what makes no sense and I had her confirm it multiple times because I was not believing what I was hearing.
I have Progressive and a teenage, permitted driver. Basically, you’re taking the responsibility for her when she’s driving. You’re in charge because you’re teaching her to drive. She isn’t allowed to drive on her own, therefore, she isn’t fully responsible for the vehicle. You need to call them every time your policy renews, or they’ll assume she got her license and will add her as a driver. My payment didn’t change when my son got his permit, thankfully.
Ah, ok. Sounds like you covered your bases. Sometimes pricing can be weird. When I had my own insurance as a young male, it was cheaper for me to add a second insured driver. My wife was female, and older than me, so she knocked off the penalty I had for being a male under 26, which was more expensive than adding her as a 27 year old woman.
Why does it cost more to EXLCUDE an 18 year old? What’s the point of excluding her, then? Make it make sense!
Insurance companies do this so when they do get their permit or drivers license you have to call them and let them know. At the company I used to work for, anyone is fully insured if they drive your car. There were too many instances where people wouldn’t list all of the people in their household and then those drivers would cause an accident and the insurance company was on the hook. I had an instance where an older mother insisted that her son that was around 30 didn’t live in the house and she wanted him off her policy because he was an excluded driver. It turns out he had 3 DUI’s and couldn’t get insurance and he wanted to drive her car. We told her that we would been proof that he has a different address like a bill with his name and address. She never brought it so he stayed on the policy. He had an accident a week later and wanted us to pay for everything. We told her to pound sand.
> She never brought it so he stayed on the policy. He had an accident a week later and wanted us to pay for everything. We told her to pound sand. So... the insurer you worked for was making her pay for the son to be on her insurance because she couldn't prove the son moved out but then denied the claim when he crashed her car? Is that due to the logic described elsewhere in the thread about 'having access to the keys' just because he lived there? I guess I'm not familiar with that logic: someone can have an excluded driver...as in: explicitly NOT supposed to be driving the insured vehicle...but they still have to pay for them because they live at your house. It kind of makes sense but seems a little sketchy...
No. An excluded driver on your policy in my state doesn’t cost anything. She was trying to NOT pay for him to be on the policy by saying he no longer lives in the house. If he was a diver on the policy, she would have been cancelled because we wouldn’t take that risk. I’m guessing his rate would have been thousands of dollars a month.
Lmao imagine working for an insurance company and thinking you're the good guy. Someone in this story should pound sand, but it isn't the customer.
Yeah she shouldn't be excluded if she doesn't have a license. She shouldn't be rated as a driver and assigned to any vehicle in the first place so there's no need to exclude her from any vehicles. If she's not getting her license within 6 months or less she shouldn't be in the auto insurance household in the system. Most policies are 6 to 12 month policies in a lot of states. If she is getting her license in 6 months or less she can be in the auto household system, but she'll just be rated as a non-driver with no driver tenure. Her name would sit there doing nothing in the system just being a good lil guy not causing any problems until she gets her license.
When I got married and tried to add my hasband and his vehicle to my policy, Progressive tried to make me add my 67yo mother in law as an excluded driver - which would have almost doubled the cost. I get that her name is also on the title of my husband's car (he bought it in college, and needed a cosigner), but she lives halfway across the country and will not be driving the car.
Yeah. I wouldn’t try to get a deal from your current insurance. You should have been taking to a NEW insurance company or in my case an insurance broker. They take your information and find the best deal for you.
I have found that the key to low rates is to get a new provider every year.
A few months back I started the process of looking for a new company, I guess I hit up the market place and before I knew it I was getting calls and texts nonstop. I gave one company a chance to do my quote and it came out even higher than what I’m paying now…after the increase.
I’ve been in insurance for 15 years, personal for 4 years, and commercial for 11. Find an insurance broker to do the shopping for you with their availabile carriers and to get you a more competitive rate.
THIS. Yes this. We use a broker; we started with our agency \~15 years ago and it's been so nice not have to shop our "package" around on our own to get the best deal.
How is a broker paid? Assuming they get 10% commission on the policy, there just can't be enough money to justify more than 1 hour of work. If I hired one, I'd be looking at rates under $600 for a 6 month policy. Wouldn't they just reject my business in favor of someone insuring $200,000 worth of vehicles over 4 drivers with a few accidents?
They wouldn’t reject your business- they’ll get paid anywhere between 15%-20% commission depending on which carrier they place your business with. If they renew your insurance they get a renewal commission as well. So over time they keep making more & more commission as their book of business grows. Any good broker that wants to make money won’t turn you down.
Absolutely get a broker. I was getting cleaned out by progressive. I had bundled my home owners and car insurance with them for a very long time. Recently switched both but with two different companies bc bundling didn’t do shit for me anymore. I live in Florida… the insurance industry is a joke. I used Savvy (broker) and they found me a car insurance policy with Bristol West that cut out about $500 a month from my payment. That’s 4 adults (2 are my adult children) and 4 cars for $680 a month. But that’s only comprehensive on 2 of those vehicles and $1000 deductibles. I don’t care. We are in survival mode down here in the sunshine state.
I pay $1300 Canadian (1000 USD) annually for myself, though I drive a rather inexpensive car
Find yourself an actual insurance agent. One who represents multiple insurance companies. Then they can find you th e best price point. And then you won't get all those sales calls. You need to weigh cost vs service vs deductable.
Thats what we did and saved $900.00 a year with better coverage :) I feel kinda dumb for not doing it sooner.
Us too. We just kept renewing every year til one year our homeowners policy literally doubled and shook us out of our complacent rut.
Do they accept business from people only paying about $100/ month? I can't imagine the commission is very high.
Yep. They get their commission (I think about 3%, but don't quote me) every time you pay your premium, not like car salesmen, who only get one commission per car. So they like to collect a large stable of customers because by definition you are repeat business as long as you hold that policy. And if they give good service, you are likely to insure your next new car with them, or add homeowners, extra life insurance, or your teen who just got their learners in the future.
$800 a month??? Does someone in the family have a bad driving record? I have six cars, including two exotics and a Tesla (notoriously expensive to insure), and my insurance is around half of yours. I’d recommend shopping around, request a quote from every insurance company that serves your state. I do this every renewal period and I have received some ridiculously high quotes (like $1600 a month). The rates between two different insurance companies can vary extremely widely.
Do you have teenagers? Boys ages 16-25, I think is the worst age range? They're hell on your insurance premium from the start.
I'd shop around for more affordable insurance. That's crazy high. I'd also venture a guess that your non-driving daughter should not have been added as an excluded driver, as she is not, in fact, a driver. We were with progressive years ago and they steadily kept raising their rates. We switched to geico for a long time, and when we added our son they jumped way up too. But when we started shopping around and decided to bundle our auto insurance with our homeowners insurance (connect by amfam), we ended up lowering our 6 month premiums by around $600 (which was slightly cheaper than what we'd been paying BEFORE we added our son as a driver).
You need to find a new insurance carrier. Charging you money for someone who is excluded, and thus not covered, is absolutely insane.
What pisses me off the most is the person I was talking to never said anything about the rate increase. She was in the retention department and knew why I was calling.
An exclusion for a driver might also mean they are excluded from coverage. Best to check out if all coverage applies for her as a passenger
Can confirm, progressive charges for excluded operators. I'd never heard of that with any other company.
Yup, same. They just put my roommate on my policy I'd opened online and wanted serious paperwork to get him off. The phone agent seemed shocked when I cancelled the policy lmao.
I went through an insurance broker. My current insurance merged with safe co and it was going to double. I'm 45 with no driving issues and I drive a 2002 truck. So I called my broker and she got me an identical policy for $600/year. I also bundled in my home and got a great deal on that as well.
That seems really high, way more than I pay in a high COL area for 11 motorcycles and 3 full coverage cars :/ I’ve always had USAA, their prices are good but not the lowest, but the customer service has always been insane.
literally go to esurance do everything online and only put you three on the list. I can almost gauruntee it wont be 800 dollars a month, that is literally insanity. I mean it depends on how good you want the insurance to be that is. If you deductables are like 500 for everything and you have towing, glass, etc, it gets expensive quick.
I have three cars and two teenagers, I pay $240/mo. How is yours so high?
I mostly attributed this to my 23 year old son, before I added him, it was $220/mo with two vehicles with full coverage. After I added him and his full coverage vehicle, it went up to $660. Now I’ve bought another vehicle and it went up to over $800, so I dropped my old vehicle down to liability only to get it back under $800, only for it to go back up while trying to look for savings.
I had to go through a whole ridiculous phone call with Progressive a couple years ago to open a new policy (I was switching companies) because they put my roommate on the policy as "excluded" after I opened the policy online. They did their regular checking of the info I gave, saw he lived at the address and was licensed, so they just added him on their own. He did not own a car or ever drive mine. He wasn't listed on our other roommates' policy. I do not care about the "well people in the same residence have access..." Nope, he did not have access to my vehicle. Him driving it would be theft. They wanted notorized statements to remove him from the policy, and proof of insurance ON HIM elsewhere. The agent I spoke to over the phone kept trying to convince me to "just" leave him as an excluded, and was shocked when I cancelled the whole damn policy lmao. I get their have their policies and requirements, but it felt shady and like they thought I was lying to them or something. I'm not dealing with that in my life.
Liberty Mutual was the absolute cheapest for me and they’re outstanding
Worked in insurance as an underwriter. Like some have said, knowing of an adult in the household is reason enough for them to add them, and as you noted, it is incredibly difficult to prove someone doesn't have a license or a permit. The easy way out is to offer you the exclusion letter. That being said, they cannot legally charge you a price for a permit driver, so if you had her with a permit, she doesn't cost anything because legally she has to be in the car with a licensed driver and is treated as having your experience and skill. When she has a license, that's when they are able to rate her by herself because she can be by herself. It's a whole bunch of crap of, you as the customer can only prove so much, and they as the insurance can only assume the worst risk, so they go for it and the ball is in your court to deal with the consequences. Also i asume the timing of the changes is what caused this roller coaster of payments you have coming. It's a double edge sword deal, which is out of their control and meant to do a temporary "we will only adjust on a credit base for this time period and you'll pay the difference down the road" kind of thing. Some people appreciate it, some don't. On paper alone it looks dumb and scary though I agree.
(I know this is not a "seeking advice" post but here I am to say) switch auto insurance companies. Insurance companies could not raise rates fast enough during the pandemic to keep up with the rising costs of goods and services. Who knows if we have peaked yet, but I know there have been gnarly premium increases across the board. Except for that first year, where they offer you a discount for signing with them. Pain in the ass, but seems to be the best bang for your buck.
I did the same thing about 2 months ago. They raised my premium 80 dollars a month. I cancelled and went to geico
I would have thought your daughter would be excluded by default, most policies I've seen exclude all under 25s unless they are specifically included.
Get a quote from Erie Insurance! I had them for like 15 years, easily had the lowest rates of any non-exclusive provider (eg, USAA). They were excellent when I had an accident as well.
Get a quote from elsewhere and threaten to walk
Go to a local place that has an actual person you can take face to face. They can normally save you some cash.
Progressive has a tendency to charge higher rates especially for multiple driver households. It doesn't cost you anything other than a few minutes to get a quote or go through an insurance broker to find the best insurance plans for you and you family. Especially with all of these rate increases that have been occurring since covid.
That seems high. We have three cars - a sedan, a crossover, and a truck, and three drivers and pay $380 a month.
Go with a different company. If you're not switching every 6mo to a year you're probably over paying.
This is why you shop around for car insurance. I bet it'll be much cheaper with another company
*Well, saving on those expensive paragraphs should help a little.*
I assumed insurance in the US was similar in Canada, but this makes no sense to me. When my insurance company asked about excluded drivers, it was specifically those in the household with drivers licenses (active or suspended) that did not have their own policy - I've never heard of excluding someone who literally does not and has not had a license. Yikes!
Hey op, find an insurance broker. They do all this work for you, professionally and will save you money. Coworker taught me about them and said what the hell we will give it a shot and got us more coverage in our house and both vehicles and it’s cheaper
Progressive did the same thing to my fiancé. We have separate car insurance, and myself and my teenage son are on our own policy with a different company. My fiancé randomly got something in the mail saying they’d added my son to his insurance policy since they live at the same address, and it’s their policy to have all drivers at the same residence on the policy. It was going to more than double his insurance rate. We had to send proof that my son is insured on a different policy in order for him to be excluded, which returned his rate to its previous total. But aside from that - it seems like a shit company policy to have? So.. if you’re living with roommates you’d have to send verification of their insurance in order to exclude them from your policy? That just seems completely ludicrous.
Should seriously quote other companies... you pay more per month for 4 vehicles than I pay for full coverage for 2 SUVs that are still being paid for per YEAR. I pay $360 per 6 months. Every couple years I switch companies, lots of discounts that way for 0 deductible and still have accident forgiveness with max limits and roadside.
That’s absolutely nuts!!! You should not be paying that much. I have Travelers and I have 2 fully covered vehicles and my home insurance and the bill is around $250. I recommend Travelers, they don’t advertise much and rely on word of mouth to help keep costs lower. Definitely go somewhere else though. Progressive is screwing you badly.
I had Progressive for almost 20 years, with no accidents or tickets, and my premium just kept increasing. Six months ago I called StateFarm to get a quote. They told me that almost everyone’s insurance was going up so not to expect anything great, but it ended up being MUCH cheaper than Progressive was charging me. Just my personal experience.
I'd contact State Farm. We ran into something similar when our son (21m) got his license. The State Farm agent was able to re-bundle our car insurance so that our son was a driver on only one car (his). This reduced our premiums significantly.
Also have had extremely good luck with State Farm. No unreasonable rate hikes, very communicative when there are any (even small ones), have been paid in less than 3 business days on two different claim instances (thankfully the only ones I have ever had to make) - YMMV and I am sure it highly depends on your local agent, but can recommend.
Progressive sent me a notification that they were dropping me because I had my home and auto bundled together, and they will not insure my home because my furnace is about 30 years old. Doesn't matter that it works fine, and it's an electric furnace. So I switched to Geico and got a better rate. OP, shop around for your insurance. In my experience you almost always get a better rate by switching to a new company.
Shop a different provider. Don't do online - deal with a real person. Your best bet is to find a broker who tries to win your business. I had a similar situation with progressive. Two cars, one younger driver, insurance kept going up even as cars got older. Eventually I got tired of it and called a few local brokers. Ended up switching to State Farm and reducing my cost by more than half. After three years with State Farm the price has not significantly increased.
Dude... You really need an insurance broker or call the zebra. Progressive is one of the most expensive and ridiculous companies when it comes to stuff like this. If you really want to save money switch companies. Your best bet will be a smaller company you've probably never heard of. The big name companies always have the highest rates for the same coverage.
Why are you even listing your daughter on your policy if she doesn't even have a permit and can't legally drive your cars? I wouldn't even bring her up when talking to a different insurance agent. Tell your current one to remove her entirely from your account or you will go with another company. Don't provide them with any information that isn't strictly necessary. That's like if I added my room mate to my policy when he has zero access to my vehicles.
Like I said in my post, the agent that was going over my policy was making sure all my info was accurate to try and lower my premium asked if I had any other drivers in the house that were of driving age. It didn’t occur to me to lie because I didn’t realize she was going to be added and since I’ve added and excluded my older daughter years prior on the same policy at no additional cost, when she told me she could exclude her, I had no idea my premium would increase BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T TELL ME.
That's the thing, she's not a driver. It's not lying, if she drove a car that would be illegal. It's totally unacceptable that they put her on the policy anyway. Your policy should be half of what it is now and I would bail to another company immediately.
TIL insurance companies in the best of circumstances are bloodsucking parasites and will leach you dry at any opportunity