Despite his bad driving, woman shocked by son’s $100,000 insurance premium
Barbara Wellensiek knew her son’s insurance premium would be steep because of his driving record, but she never expected it would be $104,566.63 when the renewal notice came in. “I thought it was a typo,” Ms. Wellensiek, of Edmonton, said yesterday. Access Insurance Group denied a mistake and said the rate was being increased from $1,300 a month. “I just about fainted — how could this be?” She has calculated that her son, Janson Towers, would have to earn $55 an hour all year just to pay his auto insurance premium. Mr. Towers has all the factors going that make for a very high rate even under the new grid system brought in when Alberta’s auto insurance reforms took effect in 2004. He is 19, and has a “tendency to speed,” Mr. Wellensiek said. Since May, 2005, he has received 10 speeding tickets, and has been in two minor “fender-benders” as well as a rear-ender that totalled his car. Although the insurance industry has complained that the grid system rewards bad drivers, an insurer could charge even more.
It seems to me like it would make more sense to take his driving license away from him after a certain amount of tickets rather than put him and his family in such high debt. Maybe I just don’t understand the system since I am not living in America. But surely if he had his license suspended for a reasonable amount of time it would be a consequence that would make more sense and be more effective.
10 speedig tickets – in the UK this guy would have been banned from driving by now.
Yeah, in Sweden too…
That’s one way of telling a person they shouldn’t be driving. Crazy.
The high insurance cost is effectively taking away his license – he can’t afford to drive. He’ll have to wait for three years for the tickets to disappear off his insurance record before it will become affordable again.
Someone, should make that kid walk. I do live in America, and people need to step up for what their kids are doing and make the kid pay for their own mistakes, not have mommy and daddy fix everything. Just because he is still in high school and has to get to school there are bus routes, he can walk, or even ride a bike!!! Stand up and teach that kid a lesson.
that is pretty ridiculous….
although, in America he would have had his license taken away; this article is from Canada. :)
That’s awesome. When I lived in Alberta I paid $700 a year for my insurance. Insurance in Edmonton is about 3 times higher than anywhere else in the province, but still…
Maybe she should switch to GEICO. I did.
/TC/
Applause for the GEICO comment. Well played sir.
Well he’s in Canada, a 19 year old in the US with that driving record would have had his license suspended.
in Calif, he would get the good driving discount.