Our clients love the SafeTeen insurance plan from The Hanover –Citizens Insurance. Why? If your child is newly licensed or just inexperienced, you probably already know what that’s likely to mean for your auto insurance rates. It’s a very dangerous idea to not add your young driver to your policy immediately, but as you reluctantly call your agent, you get the quote and too often your jaw hits the floor.
If you are dreading this with your soon-to-be driving age teen, you are certainly not alone. The historical data certainly shows that younger drivers are more ticket and accident prone so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that they can be expensive to insure. But this data does not suggest that every teen is doomed to be a bad driver.
What you really want is for your teen to learn and reinforce safe driving habits, and let his or her good habits be taken into consideration and help keep your insurance premiums low. We want your teen to be one of the exceptions to the data, and we can help keep them healthy and avoid high-risk premiums with the Citizens SafeTeen program.
With SafeTeen, you can gain some control of your young driver’s insurance premium by opting into one, two or all three of the offerings in this program.
Option 1: SmartPath
SmartPath is a telematics mobile app that tracks teen driving behavior while providing a discount(6%) on the policy. This program applies to drivers 16-19 years old who agree to download, install and use the app. The discount will be removed if the driver fails to maintain regular use(if the app is inactive or no trips are logged as a driver for 30 days).
If this program is selected, you will receive an enrollment text message from TrueMotion, the company administering the program on behalf of Citizens. Teens will also be rewarded with Amazon rewards for safe driving behavior.
SmartPath monitors:
- Distracted driving
- Speeding
- Hard Braking
- Time of Day
Parents will have a dashboard view to see driving trips and tracked driving behavior. These can be helpful tools to talk with your teen about safe driving practices as well.
One of our clients recently shared their positive experience:
“If you have other customers considering this or have questions about this and the smart path app, I HIGHLY recommend them both. My daughter said these modules were a great refresher to things learned in her driver’s training but it makes it a little more one on one for the student as well than drivers training was. The smart path app is amazing. She loves seeing the score and so do I so we can talk about any hard braking or speeding, etc as a teaching tool, plus it tracks her ALL the time lol…..”
— Alexandra B.
The teens premium can NOT be increased solely based on the tracked driving behavior of this app. Claims, tickets and violations are unchanged by using this program and how they can impact the premium.
Option 2: Parent Choice Deductible
Have a vehicle, or multiple vehicles that you NEVER let your teen drive? If you are confident in your ability to control that, you can put your money where your mouth is and save a good chunk of it at the same time.
When you add Parent Choice Deductible to a vehicle your teen does not drive, they will reduce the premium for that vehicle. The trade-off for this is that if your teen does drive the vehicle and it results in a claim, an additional $2500 is added to the deductible for the claim.
There is a definite trade-off here, but when used right and for the right household scenario, this can make a lot of sense and offer a good savings as well.
Option 3: TeenSmart
TeenSmart is an online course to educate teens on safe driving behaviors. A 15% discount will be provided to drivers the age of 16-19 yrs old.
However, the discount will be removed if the driver does not register for the course within 30 days or the course has not been completed within 60 days. If this program is selected, the insured will receive an email from Adept Driver to enroll in the program. The program can take up to 7 hours to complete in its entirety, but can be taken in modules in an on-demand format.
Citizens pays the cost of this course for you, which is a $160 value!
If you combine all of these, you could easily save a good chunk on your teen’s premium.
Contact us to find out more about these programs or to get a quote!
Darin Mohrman
I’m a former aspiring “ski-bum” turned insurance professional.I was licensed in 2002 and in 2013 I obtained my Certified Insurance Counselor (C.I.C.) designation. I'm married to an amazing woman, have a wonderful son and a cat.I enjoy travelling, music, craft beer, woodworking, collecting and restoring antique tools and all things computer and tech related.
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