Auto insurance is mandatory for anyone driving a vehicle in the US and there’s no way going around it. No matter whether it’s your first car or you’ve already retired and have decades of experience behind the wheel you will still need auto insurance for your car since the law tells so. Besides the legal framework of auto insurance there’s also simple common sense involved in its mandatory nature. Auto insurance covers your costs in case of an accidents, which can be substantial assuming current repair and medical bills. Having your car insured is cheaper in terms of such costs than driving around without insurance. However, for a particular group of drivers this benefit may seem not to be that obvious.

We are talking about students and teens in general. This group of drivers usually faces the highest auto insurance rates possible simply because of their age. But before you claim that it’s discriminatory, let’s consider the logic behind such a decision taken by all insurance companies at once. As you know, insurance companies are all about managing their risks and the only way they can hedge their risks is putting rates that will cover their costs and earn them income. So if teen drivers are charged with higher rates they somehow seem to pose a higher risk to insurers. And according to statistics that’s exactly how things are. Drivers aged under 25 usually have little driving experience and produce more accidents with higher costs than drivers of other age groups. Of course, this doesn’t mean that all young drivers are bad drivers, but the overall tendency is exactly as described and that’s the situation where one good driver will pay for the rest of worse drivers.  Read more...

Using a cell phone while driving can drive up cheap car insurance costs in two different ways. First, any involvement in an accident will inflate premiums. Secondly, a traffic violation will similarly increase premiums. It’s important to understand the different kinds of bans that are out there so you can be a safe driver and a safe cell phone user.

Handheld Bans

A handheld ban means that driving while talking on the phone is allowed, as long as the driver is using a hands-free device such as Bluetooth or speakerphone. States which have total handheld bans for all drivers include:

• California
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Maryland
• Nevada
• New Jersey
• New York
• Oregon
• Washington D.C.

Other states ban handheld cell phone use only for minor or novice drivers, or under specific circumstances. These states include:

• Arkansas (banned for drivers age 18-20 only)
• Hawaii (banned in some counties only)
• Illinois (banned in school zones and construction zones only)
• Louisiana (banned for those with learning licenses)
• New Mexico (banned for use in state vehicles only)
• Oklahoma (banned for those with learning licenses)

All Cell Phone Ban

This ban is in effect for some states which allow no phone use of any kind, including utilizing a hands-free device, although there are not any states which completely ban all cell phone use for all drivers. States which enforce an all cell phone ban for school bus drivers and/or minors under 18 and novice or learning drivers include:

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• Alaska
• Arizona
• Arkansas
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Georgia
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan