Here's How Much Adding a Teen to Your Insurance Policy Really Costs

If you've recently added a teenager to your insurance policy, you already know the shocking truth. For everyone else, the numbers you're about to read might sound like an typo.

Sadly, they are not.

With National Teen Driver Safety Week running October 18–24, the attention falls on keeping young drivers safe. For parents, a second concern arrives alongside that one: the cost of putting a teenager on the policy.

That cost is steep. According to CarInsurance.com's 2026 State of Auto Insurance Report, adding a teen driver pushes the average family's yearly premium up by $3,721, a 125% jump. A CarInsurance.com poll of more than 1,500 readers found that 57% called rising insurance costs their top worry when putting a teen on the policy, ahead of the 42% who pointed to teaching their teen to drive safely.

Where a family lives changes the math dramatically. In Louisiana, the addition runs an average of $7,122 more per year, against roughly $4,354 in Vermont. In Hawaii, the same move adds just $67 on average, because the state bars insurers from using age or driving experience to set rates.

Age shifts the figure too. The steepest average annual decline arrives at 19, when premiums fall 24%. Until then, the premium reflects the elevated crash risk that insurers assign to the youngest drivers.

Some of the increase can be offset. Good-student discounts average around 12%, though the savings vary by insurer. CarInsurance.com advises parents, before the first bill arrives, to ask what discounts apply for safety features on the car, strong grades and teen driving programs, while noting that both costs and available discounts differ from one insurer to the next.

The safety case behind the premiums is well documented. The IIHS attributes nearly a third of fatal crashes involving teen drivers to speeding, and reports that 35% of 2024 teen driving fatalities happened between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. The institute calls at least 70 hours of supervised driving a best practice for graduated driver licensing, and recommends no teen passengers during the intermediate licensing stage along with a nighttime restriction beginning at 8 p.m.

Those risk factors are what insurers price in when a teenager joins a policy. For most families, the result is a premium that more than doubles, with the sharpest relief still years away at age 19.