Insurance recommendations?

There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about the fact that I have a lot of cars. Addict. 

But maybe I can position myself to do a little better in car insurance. Maybe. 

We have 4 drivers in the house, all with clean driving records. But 2 are teenage boys.  1 is half out of the house, the other is headed off to college (he could do without a car, but it is convenient)

We have 6 insured cars.  Insurance bill is now about $300 per month.  Reducing a vehicle is a possibility.

- My truck is old, and mostly sits. It’s driven a couple days a month. 

- 2000 Miata. This is a fun car only. Won’t be driven much.  I would consider taking it off the road for track duty only.

- 2003 Vibe. This is my commuter (but I could drive the Miata and sell this)

- I am the primary driver of all 3 of the above cars. I don’t need them all, but they serve different purposes. I do more driving than anyone in the family, but the combined useage of all 3 is still 1 driver.

-  2005 MPV. Family car

- 2003 ZX3. Son’s car

- 2015 Elantra. Best condition car we have. Shared driven by my wife and younger son.

I don’t feel the need for full coverage on anything except the Elantra.  They are all cheap, and easily replaced. 

I need ideas for how to manage the insurance bills with a couple of teen boys, and a couple cars that are not driven regularly. 

take your youngest off the Elantra and relegate him to the minivan?

move the miata and truck to pleasure/mileage based rates?  not sure if that's still an option, but it used to be

pick up a renter's insurance policy on your college-bound son in the fall, with the same company (sometimes the rate bundling works out cheaper than the two products individually)

In reply to SVreX :

Make sure any vehicle you buy has the latest safety options.  Things like adaptive cruise control (  the kind that brakes automatically if you are distracted)  blind spot warning,  lane change warning, GPS enabled. 

Not because you need it but because insurance is cheaper with it than without them. My insurance on my new truck was $20 cheaper than the old 20 year old pickup it replaced. 

Agents know based on the serial number but be sure to ask for it. 

In reply to frenchyd :

I’m not buying any vehicles. Especially late model ones with fancy features. 

The purchase price will WAAY exceed any insurance savings. 

Take a look at my list. 4 of those are sub $2000 cars. 

I would sooner get rid of a vehicle (or 2) than buy one. 

Do you have insurance brokers in your area?  They can shop different companies for you to combine auto/homeowners/etc. and try to get the best package deal overall.  Once the number of cars you have exceeds the number of drivers, the rates for the additional vehicles don't seem to add much at least in my case.

Not sure if your insurance offers this, but it might be worth checking if they offer some sort of low mileage discount for the cars that aren't driven very much? Our previous insurer offered that and at least it knocked a few bucks off the insurance bill.

Haggerty's site will give you quotes. They seem to take into account the miles driven and how it is stored. My quote for 3 cars with better coverage than I currently have on two cars was about even.

300  bucks on 6 cars with teen drivers is cheap!  

TGMF said:

300  bucks on 6 cars with teen drivers is cheap!  

That's what I was going to say... Seems like about as good as you're gonna get. 

Insurance costs are so location dependent, it's hard to say what is "a lot" and what isn't.  I pay about $266/mo for 3 vehicles (only the '06 MCS has full coverage) with one driver (me) with a reasonably clean record (no tickets or accidents in quite awhile).  But I live in fairly densely populated southeast PA, not GA/SC where the OP lives.  While not as bad as NJ (re: mad_machine's similar thread), it still isn't cheap around here.

I still have trouble understanding why it matters how many cars I own. I can only drive one at a time.  Adding a car shouldn't have any appreciable affect beyond maybe some minor administration fees.  Were I ruler of the world, that would be an early law: insure the driver(s), not the cars 

There are also differences in liability levels - something often not discussed when looking at insurance premiums. When I looked at my finances a few years ago, I realized, "oh berk - I'm actually somewhat worth suing right now..." and had to increase my liability levels by quite a bit. That added costs to my bill compared to what I was paying when I was in my 20's and wasn't worth anything.