Cheapest Car Insurance for Teens

Teens are both young and new drivers. As a result, they have some of the highest car insurance rates of any demographic.

If you're a parent, adding a teen to your existing policy is the most cost-effective option, as stand-alone policies are much more expensive. Overall, we discovered that Nationwide provided the most affordable, widely available insurance for a parent adding a teenage driver to their policy, though the most affordable insurer differed by region and state. And insurance companies with limited regional availability, such as Erie, or membership requirements, such as USAA, have some of the cheapest insurance for teenagers.

You can find the cheapest auto insurance companies for young drivers in your area by looking below.

Cheapest car insurance company for parents with a teen driver

Nationwide has the cheapest widely available auto insurance for teen drivers, according to our research. A six-month Nationwide policy with a teen and parent costs $1,266 on average, which is less than half the national average of $2,859.

Erie and USAA were the cheapest insurers overall, despite the fact that they aren't for everyone. Erie is only available in 12 states and Washington, D.C., whereas USAA only offers policies to active and retired military personnel. If you want to add a teen to your car insurance policy, you should look into these companies.

In some cases, we discovered that smaller regional insurers offered lower rates. In addition, a major insurer may be particularly inexpensive in your state. Nationwide, for example, was the cheapest major insurer on average, but Geico was the cheapest insurer in four of our ten sample states.

The cost of adding a teen to your car insurance policy

Adding a teen driver to their parents' policy is usually a less expensive option than getting a teen a car insurance policy on their own. In fact, adding a teen to a policy costs half as much as getting them their own individual policy.

The average six-month cost of adding an 18-year-old to a car insurance policy is $1,510. However, the average cost of an 18-year-old getting a policy on their own is $3,589 per six-month period.

The parent is the most affected in this case because they are taking a significant risk by adding a new, teen driver to their policy. As a result, insurance companies' yearly payments will rise.

When compared to the cost of the same 18-year-old getting their own policy, keeping your teen on your policy saves families an average of $2,080 every six months — a 44 percent reduction in auto insurance costs.

Cheapest auto insurance for teen drivers by state

Because car insurance rates for teenagers vary greatly from state to state, the cheapest insurance in your state may not actually reflect the cheapest overall insurers listed above. Certain companies were also left out of our national analysis because they are only available in a few states and not for all drivers.

We've compiled a comprehensive list of the cheapest auto insurers for young drivers in each of the ten states covered by our research.

• California
• Florida
• Georgia
• Illinois
• Michigan
• New York
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Texas

California

Mercury insurance is the cheapest in California for a 50-year-old parent adding an 18-year-old teen to their policy. A full coverage policy costs about $2,738 per year on average.

Mercury is already a low-cost option for older drivers, and only State Farm and Farmers charged less when our sample driver added their teen to the policy.

*50-year-old with teenager

Florida

Geico is the most affordable option for Florida parents who want to add a teen to their car insurance policy. A 50-year-old will pay $1,723 per year for car insurance on their own, but they will pay an average of $3,500 with their teen on the policy.

State Farm, Allstate, and Progressive all charged more than $2,500 per year to add a teen to an existing policy.

Georgia

Drivers in Georgia who want to add a teen to their insurance policy should contact the Georgia Farm Bureau. It has some of the state's lowest rates and didn't charge our sample driver much more to add a son or daughter to their car insurance. A full coverage policy with both the parent and the teen costs $2,676 per year on average.

Georgia parents who qualify for USAA should get a quote from that company as well, as its rates were on average lower than the Farm Bureau's.

Illinois

USAA is by far the cheapest option for Illinois parents who want to add a teen to their policy. However, for those who do not qualify for USAA, State Farm is the next best option on average. State Farm charges an average of $2,929 per year for car insurance for a parent and a teen.

Some well-known companies, such as Farmers and Allstate, are already expensive for a single driver, but they become even more expensive when a teen is added, nearly doubling their costs.

Michigan

Michigan has the highest car insurance rates in the country, but two companies stand out for parents looking to add a teen to their policy: USAA and Auto-Owners Insurance. The latter is open to all and costs $4,727 per year for a full coverage policy that covers both a parent and a teen.

The cheapest policy is offered by USAA, but it may not be available to you. Progressive is the only other reasonably priced option we looked into; Frankenmuth, State Farm, AAA, and Hanover all charge more than — and in some cases much more than — $8,000 per year.

New York

Geico is also the most affordable option for parents with a teen in New York. Geico charged our 50-year-old sample driver $2,094 per year for himself, plus an additional $1,477 to add a teen, for a total annual cost of $3,571.

USAA is also a low-cost option for those who qualify. It was only a few hundred dollars more than Geico at $3,713 per year.

North Carolina

In North Carolina, insurers charge a low fee to add a teen to a policy. Parents with a Geico policy, for example, will pay an additional $393 per year when they add their teen to the policy. In total, the policy costs an average of $1,505 per year for both parent and teen.

North Carolina Farm Bureau, Erie, and Progressive are also three reasonably priced options for parents, with annual fees ranging from $1,682 to $1,797.

Ohio

Geico is the cheapest option in Ohio for parents with a teen, as it is in many of our other states. Our driver's Geico policy cost an average of $2,179 per year, which is roughly double the price of a 50-year-old getting a policy that only covers them.

State Farm comes in second place, costing nearly $400 more than Geico. State Farm is actually less expensive if you don't add your teen to the policy, but it charged our sample driver an extra $1,444 on average if they added their son or daughter.

Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, USAA is once again the most affordable option overall. However, for those who do not qualify, Erie is the most cost-effective option. An Erie policy covers a parent and a teen for an average of $2,355 per year, which is nearly $500 less than the next best alternative.

Allstate and Progressive rank Pennsylvania as the most expensive state. If you're interested in these companies, it's still worth getting a quote because insurance rates vary greatly from person to person. However, on average, these companies are not inexpensive in Pennsylvania.

Texas

State Farm just edges out Geico as the state's cheapest widely available insurance company. Our driver spent $1,385 on insurance alone, and an additional $3,178 when he added his teen to the policy.

Again, for those who qualify, USAA is a very low-cost option. In fact, it's $1,400 per year less expensive than State Farm on average, so Texas drivers who want to add a teen to their policy should get a quote.

More ways for teens to save on car insurance

Young drivers can save money on car insurance in a variety of ways.

The first is by qualifying for discounts, which most major insurers offer to young drivers.

These include discounts for:

• being an excellent student
• enrolling in a driver's education course

Furthermore, if a teen is covered by their parent's policy, most large insurance companies will lower car insurance premiums if the teen is away at school and has limited access to a vehicle.

Another significant way to save money is to forego coverages that may be unnecessary or costly for teen drivers, such as collision insurance.

Methodology

For a sample 50-year-old male driver driving a 2015 Honda Civic EX, we obtained quotes from over 23 companies in ten states. The rates for a teenager are an average of rates for males and females aged 18 years.

We used a full coverage car insurance policy with the limits and deductibles listed below:

The insurance rate data used in LowCostInsurance analysis came from Quadrant Information Services. These rates were obtained publicly from insurer filings and should only be used for comparison purposes — your own quotes may differ.