Car insurance for your cadet - save some $$$

USAA is awesome. I wish I could join. My son uses them for his insurance on his car and his renters insurance and his valuable property.

He has had a claim on his renters insurance and on his VPP and they fund so fast, it is amazing. and they just deposit directly to his checking.

Recently his iphone was stolen. The next day he sent them the police report number and a receipt and the day after that, the money was in his account.
 
State Farm refused to take my son off of my policy when he went to USMMA last year. They researched the issue for days and were adamant that their underwriters would not allow him to be taken off. So, after 30 years of my business on multiple policies, I switched to Farmers. Farmers was only too happy to take DS off my policy, but he is covered when he is home on break. I too, wish I were eligible for USAA.
 
We had a very different experience with State Farm! DS is at BCT right now, but several months ago I thought about this issue and contacted my agent. It was their suggestion to just drop him from our policy. I was the one who was hesitant -I wanted to be sure he would be covered. The agent's office even made a note to remove him effective June 24. I called yesterday to confirm that it happened and it did. I can't wait to see what the savings will be!

Full disclosure: we live in Bloomington, IL, State Farm corporate headquarters:rolleyes:We are not employees and have no connection to them other than being policy holders.
 
mom14 said:
We had a very different experience with State Farm! DS is at BCT right now, but several months ago I thought about this issue and contacted my agent. It was their suggestion to just drop him from our policy. I was the one who was hesitant -I wanted to be sure he would be covered. The agent's office even made a note to remove him effective June 24. I called yesterday to confirm that it happened and it did. I can't wait to see what the savings will be!
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I had the exact same experience with State Farm. Our agent was the one who suggested we drop him and he would still be covered.

Perhaps it's dependent on the agent, and not the company?
 
Luigi59 said:
I had the exact same experience with State Farm. Our agent was the one who suggested we drop him and he would still be covered.

Perhaps it's dependent on the agent, and not the company?
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sounds like the agent is looking out for his/her revenue stream or just doesn't know their business
 
I would tend to agree that it probably depends on the agent. However, I don't know about the rest of the country, but here State Farm is only sold by State Farm agents, so I don't really make a distinction between the company and the agent.

It
 
We had a very similar situation with State Farm in Austin, TX. Our agent insisted that we had to keep our son on our policy last year and that if we took him off then we'd have to reinstate him each time he's home, yada, yada, yada. None of that was accurate. We have since insisted on having him removed from our policy and all is well. I have read several posts by parents about this same issue with State Farm...Very frustrating, especially when we were pretty certain we no longer needed to carry him on our policy.
 
bandit said:
USAA is awesome. I wish I could join.
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You can join as a family member. The services you get are limited though. You will not be eligible for auto or property insurance but you can do banking and investments and get life insurance as a family member.
 
You can join as a family member. The services you get are limited though. You will not be eligible for auto or property insurance but you can do banking and investments and get life insurance as a family member.
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I don't think that is accurate. As the parent I do not qualify. If I was a dependent, then that would be different. At least that is what they told me when I inquired.
 
bandit said:
I don't think that is accurate. As the parent I do not qualify. If I was a dependent, then that would be different. At least that is what they told me when I inquired.
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I was able to become a member based on the fact that I am parent of a cadet.
 
buff81 said:
I was able to become a member based on the fact that I am parent of a cadet.
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For this company, property and casualty insurance products are available based on specific eligibility related to military service of themselves or certain family members. Though not widely marketed, other financial services are open to all, and a member account number is issued. Full "membership" accrues from holding the insurance products. The company website steers people based on what they enter for eligibility information.
 
Texasrocks said:
no that would be marriage and immigration status

if you are military you are no longer a dependent
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I wasn't talking about the dependent status of the military person. A person at the Academy can still be on parent's insurance policy, because they are still a student. I was talking about different state's insurance rules on whether or not they can place a student in "Non Operator" status or drop them completly and have them be covered when they return for breaks. Our USAA rep had to transfer us to the OHIO agent to make sure they did the best thing, because she stated each state was different.
I'm an Academy grad and was a personnel officer, hubs is an Academy grad and still active duty, and son is a Plebe...I'm familiar with what constitutes a dependant. You are mixing up dependent and dependant
 
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I was able to become a member based on the fact that I am parent of a cadet.
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Ok, so I guess you can actually become a member, but it has absolutely nothing to do with being a parent of a cadet.

This type of membership gives you access to only a very small range of the products. Since it doesn't give you access to the insurance products, I am not quite sure there is even a benefit.

For instance, for the free checking, you don't get "free" deposit at home or deposit mobile. So I guess that means you have to either mail in the deposit, or pay for the service.
 
After reading through these threads I called my State Farm agent. Here is what I was told...

They told me that as long as our basic cadet lists his "home address" as ours, he must be rated on our car insurance policy even though he's only here with us maybe 6 weeks out of the year. Since he is off at "school" however, they can put him on a "student away" status for which we get a (as yet to be determined) premium break.

I explained that since he has technically joined the military, since he is drawing a paycheck with the military and and since the IRS does not consider him our dependent anymore for tax purposes that he is probably not technically a dependent of ours anymore. No matter, I was told. As long as he lists his address of record as our home address he needs to be rated on our policy.

Sounds like State Farm agents are all over the place on this subject.
 
Bundy said:
After reading through these threads I called my State Farm agent. Here is what I was told...

They told me that as long as our basic cadet lists his "home address" as ours, he must be rated on our car insurance policy even though he's only here with us maybe 6 weeks out of the year. Since he is off at "school" however, they can put him on a "student away" status for which we get a (as yet to be determined) premium break.

I explained that since he has technically joined the military, since he is drawing a paycheck with the military and and since the IRS does not consider him our dependent anymore for tax purposes that he is probably not technically a dependent of ours anymore. No matter, I was told. As long as he lists his address of record as our home address he needs to be rated on our policy.

Sounds like State Farm agents are all over the place on this subject.
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Your son should be able to give you a USAFA address (not his PO box) that you could list. Not sure if it would matter that the driver's license would still list the home address, but something to check on.
 
bandit said:
Ok, so I guess you can actually become a member, but it has absolutely nothing to do with being a parent of a cadet.
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That's what the USAA agent told me so I was misinformed.

bandit said:
This type of membership gives you access to only a very small range of the products. Since it doesn't give you access to the insurance products, I am not quite sure there is even a benefit.
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Agreed. I acknowledged the limited range of products available to me in my prior post. I was just responding to your desire to become a member of USAA. Being a USAA member is definitely more beneficial to those who are more closely connected to the military.
 
yeah that is about what State Farm told me the first time too. In fact, this was their exact response originally.

As long as he is a dependent, we are entitled to rate him on his policy. Being in the Air Force Academy is college, and we always surcharge for dependent sons/daughters who are in college, no matter where in the country. If his son joined the Armed Services and became active duty with an assigned duty station, then that is him/her becoming independent. If the son/dtr would have a vehicle titled in their name, then it would need to be insured in their name in the location of their permanent duty station. I can't tell you anything other than that.
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After that, my response was easy.

1. He is no longer a dependent
2. He is active duty and USAFA is his assigned duty station.
3. He is paid by the US Govt. and no longer supported by his parents

After I sent them that, they agreed and dropped him off the policy. Which was good because he had a couple accidents so I saved $1,100/year.

Of course, if your state requires proof of insurance to have a drivers license, then it is a little trickier. Because once they are taken off the policy, then they no longer have proof of coverage for licensing purposes. However, Colorado does not require proof of insurance to have a license, so they could get licenses in CO. That is what my cadet has done. Of course now he has a car and his own insurance through USAA
 
bandit said:
yeah that is about what State Farm told me the first time too. In fact, this was their exact response originally.



After that, my response was easy.

1. He is no longer a dependent
2. He is active duty and USAFA is his assigned duty station.
3. He is paid by the US Govt. and no longer supported by his parents

After I sent them that, they agreed and dropped him off the policy. Which was good because he had a couple accidents so I saved $1,100/year.

Of course, if your state requires proof of insurance to have a drivers license, then it is a little trickier. Because once they are taken off the policy, then they no longer have proof of coverage for licensing purposes. However, Colorado does not require proof of insurance to have a license, so they could get licenses in CO. That is what my cadet has done. Of course now he has a car and his own insurance through USAA
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Does ANY state require auto insurance to get (and keep) a driver's license? :confused:

I can understand requiring insurance to title/register a car, but for a driver's license?

I've never heard that. What about the people who don't own cars?
 
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