People everywhere are looking for ways to save money. If you have several people in your household, you may be wondering if you can combine your auto insurance into one policy in order to save money on your monthly premiums. 

So, can you add your girlfriend to your car insurance? Or, how about your roommate? In this article, we’ll talk about circumstances when it might make sense for two different people, who are not married, to be on the same car insurance policy. 

The Quick Answer

The easy answer to this question depends on your answer to another: do the two people live in the same household? 

If your answer is yes, then both people should be listed on the same car insurance policy. It does not matter if they are related or whether or not they are married. In fact, most insurance companies actually require that all household members be listed on the same auto insurance policy, if they will be driving the household cars. 

Advantages of One Policy

The one policy per household plan has several advantages, especially if the household is full of drivers who have good driving records. You can take advantage of all types of discounts this way, including:

• Multi-vehicle discounts
• Bundling discounts
• Safe driver discounts

And, if you have a less-than-stellar driving record, having a driver on your policy who has a better record can help you improve your own car insurance rates over time. 

Advantages of Multiple Policies

If you don’t live together or you don’t share vehicles with another person on a regular basis, you might be better to keep your policies separate. If another person who uses your car infrequently (less than 12 times a year) gets into an accident, they may be covered anyway, as long as they were using the car with your permission. 

Also, if one of you has a bad driving record, it may not make sense to combine policies because one of you is going to pay more than you would pay separately. Adding drivers with bad records will certainly increase the rate for the policy for everyone. 

If your girlfriend, or someone else you want to add to your policy, has a bad credit rating or drives a really expensive car, you may want to consider keeping your auto insurance policies separate. These are factors that determine the overall rate. So, if you drive a beat up Honda and the other person drives a new Range Rover, you will be paying a lot more together than you would be separately. 

The best thing you can do to answer the question of combining policies is to shop around. You can use the InsuranceWins form to get quotes both separately and combined to help you figure out the best way for you and everyone you live with to save the most money.