Teen Car Insurance | How to Choose the Safest Car for Your Teen and get the Best Car Insurance Rate

When it comes to choosing your child’s vehicle bigger is better. Bigger cars (midsize and full-size) have more safety features and insurance companies tend to lower their premiums for drivers with those types of cars. Following is some guidelines to choosing cars that have the right ratio between size and safety features. This way your soon to be driver will be save and you will get the best teen car insurance rates for your kid.

First what to look for when buying a car for your teenager:

1. “Choose a large sedate sedan” says Susan Ferguson from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. She goes “Parents should stay away from vehicles that are small or sporty”. Bigger vehicles like sedans and minivans are not sexy but reduce the chances that your young driver will be involved in a speed-related crash. Stay away from small cars.

2. When deciding what vehicle to buy for your soon to be driver take a look at the results from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration front and side crash test. What you want is a car that has earned a 4- or 5- star rating.

3. What usually happens is parents give their teens their old vehicles. There are a few things to consider here. Of course it makes economic sense not to buy a new car but to use the one that you already have. Keep in mind though that older vehicles have less safety features. Cars manufactured 10 years ago lack safety features that today are standard. For this reason go for a newer vehicle.

4. Another way to reduce the teen car insurance rates is to pick a vehicle that has airbags. They protect the driver and any front seat passengers in case of a car accident. Remind you teen drivers that air bags work best in conjunction with seatbelts and insist on always wearing them. The latest vehicles come equipped with belts not only for the driver and front seat passenger but also for the passengers in the back seats. Insurance companies like Geico offer a discount of 15 percent on the medical payments or personal injury protection portion of the insurance premium if the driver and the passengers in the car wear seat belts.

5. Go for a car with anti- lock brakes. They are better known as ABS but what they actually do is help the driver maintain control during hard stops.

6. Pick a vehicle that has a 4- or 5-star NHTSA rollover rating. Young drivers tend to overcorrect when steering out of trouble, which makes them more prone to roll their vehicles. SUVs are more likely to roll over because the center of gravity is higher. There are some crossovers SUVs like such as Volvo XS90 and Chrysler Pacifica with 4 star rating from NHTSA.

7. The weight of vehicle also matters. According to experts it should be at least 3,300 pounds. This way a lot of small cars and many small trucks are ruled out. Having a heavier vehicle means that when a bigger vehicle hits a smaller ones it carries more momentum and causes more damage on the other car or truck. That explains why the bigger the vehicle the safer it is.

8. The ideal vehicle for your teen need more then 8 seconds but less than 11, to go from 0 to 60 mph, a range recommended by Consumer Reports. It means that the car your teen drives can’t go too fast and at the same time can accelerate safety on highways and around other vehicles.

Choosing the car with the best safety features takes time but it pays off big time. Sure, having such a vehicle will decrease your teen car insurance, but the saving is nothing compared to your son or daughter’s life saved when involved in a car accident just because you took the time to choose the appropriate vehicle.