Maybe it’s different in NH. We have to carry insurance or we can’t register the car. Insurance comes first. There are a couple of problems with a teen getting insurance on his own. One is that he is in a high risk group. Registering it on his own implies that he really is on his own, and doesn’t have adults in his life. Many insurers won’t sell auto insurance to a teen, and having a parent registered as the owner and the teen as the primary driver allows the teen to obtain insurance through normal channels. In MD, there is a solution. The state has a very high priced option for people that can’t obtain insurance any other way. Most of these people were dropped by their insurer, and of course prices are high. The source I provided earlier discussed the inability of teens to get insurance on their own. The second issue is providing insurance to a minor. I don’t know the legal implications for an auto insurer, but there may be some.
I never tried to get insurance on my own until I was 22, and that was a couple score years ago. I never tried to register any of our cars in a teenage child’s name, so I wouldn’t know about my children as teens either. Both of my daughters that own cars got insurance on their own after the graduated college and started working. Maybe you were unaware of thei issue for the same reasons.