Consider the following statistics on teen drivers

• The biggest cause of death for people between 16 and 20 is car accidents
• States that allow licensing at age 16 or less have higher teen accident rates
• When teenage passengers are in the vehicle, the teen driver is twice as likely to be involved in a fatal crash
• Speeding and following too close are the most cited reasons for teen crashes

While these numbers are alarming, teens will drive. And as drivers they’ll need insurance. Following are some tips on how to improve the odds for your teenager, save some money on car insurance and buy additional insurance protection for you and your family.

Educate

Many experts recommend 100 hours of supervised driving (including hours driving at night) prior to receiving a driver’s license.  Most states are far below that. For example, Washington and Illinois each require only 50 hours for their fledgling drivers.

One way to change this, of course, is to take your teen and make sure he/she gets a lot of supervised practice prior to being allowed to drive. You can also have them take additional practice via driving schools or whatever is available via community groups or colleges.

Track

Rapid increases in technology have brought new, effective ways to monitor the driving habits of your teenagers. For example, there are GPS devices that combine with the internet to allow parents to check on their teen’s driving performance.

• In real time, you can determine the speed, location and direction of the vehicle your teen is driving by logging into a computer.
• If your teen locks their keys in a car, the car can be unlocked from your computer!
• If you feel the need to show some tough love, some of these systems allow you to actually render the car unable to start.
• If your teen exceeds preset speed or travels to an off limit place you can be notified immediately. You can even be made aware about what time your teen arrives/leaves school/home!

Protect

In our litigious society it may be a wise idea to purchase an umbrella liability insurance policy while you have a teenage driver. An umbrella policy begins to pay out after the liability limits of your auto policy have been exhausted.

For example, if your auto policy has a $300,000 liability limit, the umbrella policy will pay out after the $300,000 is used up. The attractive thing about this protection is its cost. For only about $150 to $300 you can buy a $1 million personal umbrella policy. For each million thereafter, the premium is even less.