Usually, when someone starts a college away from home (in the same or different state) they start spending their time in two places. It may be confusing to choose which one to use for car insurance purposes. In that case, it is important to try and provide the true picture when you are getting quotes to avoid any problems with claims in the future.
The answer to this question can differ from person to person depending on their circumstances. Where the automobile is kept, who owns it and where the student’s or owner’s ordinary residence play key roles in deciding how you should deal with this question. Here is how to proceed depending on the answers to these questions.
Where Is Student’s Regular Address?
There are two options. Either you can still keep your parents’ house as registered address for license, bills and other correspondence or move everything to the school. If you choose to move everything to new place you should move auto insurance address too, especially if you take the automobile with you. If not, you can leave it as it is.
Which address is used to register the vehicle is important as the same should (and in some cases must) be used for insurance too.
Who Owns the Vehicle?
If your parents own the automobile you are driving then where you are is irrelevant since they will be covering it in their place of residence. Many fathers and mothers buy the car in their name and list their children in their policies as drivers because this is usually the cheapest option.
Where Is the Car Kept?
If you own it but leave it at your parents then it may make sense to keep main residence as the same so that you don’t need to make changes to the policy, vehicle registration and driving license. This is totally acceptable since you haven’t left them yet. Students are normally considered temporary dwellers at the college town and their main residence still remains to be their hometown, unless they choose to stay where the school is even during the breaks and summer recess.
It is usually expensive to insure a vehicle in a youngsters heavy zip code like a campus. But it is not always the case. If the school is in a small sleepy town and home is a large city the opposite may be true. If you are taking the car with you then you may have to pay whatever the premium. Otherwise, you don’t need to do anything since the vehicle will normally be driven in your actual town.
As a rule, where the car is kept at night most of the time is where it should be covered.
Naturally people would want to keep the cost of insuring a teenage driver as low as possible and there are several ways of doing it. You should look at all options and perhaps get a few quotes for different options to compare costs before making a decision.
Also, they shouldn’t be quick to drop a child away at college from auto insurance. This may not actually be allowed if they are still coming back home during school breaks. But you should look for a special discount offered to parents’ of a college student who is at least 100 miles away. If the carrier doesn’t offer such discount you may get a few more quotes from others to see if you can save.