Paying the monthly price

By Jeremy Bell

Sophomore, Parkview Baptist High School

So you’re a teenager, and you just got your first car. Now you need to get car insurance because Louisiana law requires it. The problem is, because it’s required, you’ve become the “captive audience” of the insurance agencies, and they make sure they stay on top. In other words, they earn more, we lose more.

Car insurance shouldn’t be a burden, a chore or a pain. It should be a hassle-free experience for all drivers, but more importantly, for teens. Teen car insurance rates are based on the driving behavior of teenaged drivers from previous years, and as most people know, most teens have a history of being unsafe drivers. Then there are other teens who are good, safe drivers, and it’s that select group of good teen drivers who have to pay the big monthly price.

Instead of punishing teenagers for the behavior of bad drivers from the past, why not let teens set their own driving records and earn their own insurance rates? It’s not their fault that when they were small kids, the teens ahead of them were doing donuts in parking lots or rear-ending the car in front of them because their music was too loud. Teenagers should be rewarded for good driving behavior.

Some insurance agencies already have insurance plans that reward good teen drivers, but it’s not enough. The wallets of teens and their parents are still empty at the end of the month. There is a simple way to fix these problems. The insurance agencies should offer plans for teens that start with a six-month trial period. This plan would allow teenagers to establish their own rates by proving themselves to be good or bad drivers. At the end of the trial period, each individual teen driver would be given a monthly rate based on his or her own driving record, not the records of other drivers. In hopes of lowering costs, parents would be encouraged to help their teens become better drivers, too.

Better drivers paying less money.

Sounds good.