Key Takeaways
- Our auto insurance calculator leverages real-world data about location, driving history and risk profile to model how these factors impact your premium.
- Car insurance calculators can be useful for understanding what you might pay for insurance and whether you’re getting a good deal.
- To get the most accurate quotes, you’ll need to contact insurance providers.
While a car insurance calculator won’t answer all of your insurance problems, it can help you understand what a fair rate might be and make it easier to find the best car insurance company for you.
In this article, the MarketWatch Guides team explains what a car insurance calculator is, what it does and how it can help you find cheap auto insurance.
Car Insurance Cost Calculator
Use our auto insurance calculator below to get an estimate of your premium without having to provide any personal contact information.
You can expect to pay
$ – $ per month
on car insurance.
Sorry, we couldn’t find any results based on your selections.
How To Use Our Car Insurance Calculator
We created this calculator tool to give you a reasonable estimate of your insurance premium whether you’re shopping for your first insurance policy or shopping around for discounts. Our calculator uses 8,366,100 car insurance quotes with our most up-to-date rate data from Quadrant Information Services, a property and casualty insurance database.
Fill in Your Information
Our calculator has drop-downs to select your age, gender, driving record, credit score and marital status. If you don’t know your credit score, most banks offer free access to your score through your online account. Once you have that information, you can fill out your state, your desired coverage level and the type of vehicle you’ll be insuring.
Understanding Your Results
Your results will appear in a drop-down after you click the “Calculate” button. The calculator will determine the average starting rate for your area based on your location information. It will then use the other information you provided to adjust the base rate to match your driver profile.
You’ll see a range for what you can expect to pay, as well as a breakdown of low to high monthly and yearly payments. Keep these numbers in mind while gathering quotes from car insurance companies to determine whether you’re being offered a low or high rate.
How Is Car Insurance Calculated?
Our car insurance calculator functions similarly to the way auto insurers calculate rates for customers. Every provider has its own formula for how it adjusts rates based on specific risk factors. That’s why you’ll often find differences in rates between providers for the same coverage and driver profile.
Factors That Affect Car Insurance Rates
When determining auto premiums, insurers assess your risk level based on key factors about you, such as your vehicle type, location, age, gender, marital status, credit history and driving record. (Some states ban or limit insurers’ use of certain factors, such as gender and credit history.) Each factor is correlated with a certain amount of risk for filing a claim or causing a claim to be filed.
For example, drivers who have a DUI on their record tend to pose an increased risk for insurers, but marital status has much less of an impact on your premium than a DUI conviction does.
How Much Should Car Insurance Cost?
The national average rates for auto insurance are $61 per month for minimum coverage and $203 per month for full coverage, according to data from Quadrant Information Services. Your rates will differ from the national averages based on the factors we listed above.
Car Insurance Costs by Type of Coverage
The type of coverage you choose typically makes the biggest difference in the cost of your auto insurance. Auto policies are divided into two broad categories: minimum coverage and full coverage.
The rates listed below are for a 35-year-old driver with good credit and no driving violations who owns a 2023 Toyota Camry.
Minimum Coverage
In every state except New Hampshire, drivers must carry insurance that meets their state’s minimum-coverage requirements. These policies are almost always the cheapest car insurance you can buy, and they’re often labeled as minimum-coverage insurance or liability-only policies. Here are the national average rates for minimum coverage:
- National Minimum Liability Monthly Average: $61
- National Minimum Liability Annual Average: $736
The table below shows the cheapest providers for these policies at the national level.
Full Coverage
While minimum coverage is enough to keep you legal, experts tend to recommend full-coverage policies for most drivers. This is because full-coverage insurance covers your property and medical expenses in addition to the other driver’s expenses, which is especially important if you’re at fault for an accident. Here are the national average rates for full coverage:
- National Full-Coverage Monthly Average: $203
- National Full-Coverage Annual Average: $2,433
The table below shows the country’s cheapest providers for full-coverage insurance and their average rates.
| Full-Coverage Provider | Average Monthly Full-Coverage Car Insurance Rate | Average Annual Full-Coverage Car Insurance Rate |
|---|---|---|
| USAA* | $143 | $1,722 |
| Travelers | $161 | $1,937 |
| Geico | $162 | $1,939 |
| Erie Insurance | $169 | $2,024 |
| Auto-Owners Insurance | $180 | $2,157 |
Car Insurance Costs by Age
Age is one of the most impactful factors when it comes to car insurance premiums. Younger drivers, especially teens, pay significantly higher rates than any other age group. As drivers get older, their premiums drop. Drivers in their 30s, 40s and 50s tend to pay the lowest rates for car insurance, while drivers in their 70s tend to see rates rise again.
Car Insurance Costs by Driving History
Your driving history can strongly influence your auto insurance rates. If you have a clean driving record, you’ll generally receive the cheapest premiums. Driving infractions such as accidents, speeding tickets and DUIs can significantly increase the cost of car insurance.
Car Insurance Costs by Credit Score
In all states except California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and Michigan, car insurance companies can use your credit history as a factor in setting your premiums. It can have a significant impact on the price of a policy.
For example, while the national average for minimum liability car insurance is $61 per month for someone with good credit, someone with poor credit would pay $116 per month on average — almost twice as much. Similarly, according to national averages, full coverage goes from $203 per month for someone with good credit to $302 per month for someone with poor credit.
Car Insurance Costs by Location
Average rates vary by state and ZIP code. This is because of varying local risk factors such as property crime rates and severe weather. As a result, insuring a vehicle in one county may be more expensive than insuring it in a neighboring county.
Car Insurance Costs by Demographic
Factors related to your demographic profile — such as your marital status or whether you own or rent your home — can also influence your rates, albeit less so than some of the other factors we mentioned.
How Accurate Are Car Insurance Calculators?
Because our car insurance calculator was created using 8 million real car insurance quotes, we can provide a fairly accurate estimation of your car insurance cost. However, no car insurance calculator tool can give you the exact price you’ll pay. Auto coverage rates are too individualized and variable to predict precisely.
The only way to know for sure how much your auto policy will cost is to get actual quotes from insurers. To check your rates, enter your ZIP code below.
What You Can Do With Insurance Calculator Estimates
Our auto premium calculator’s estimates likely won’t be the exact rates you’ll pay, and they aren’t actual offers for policies. However, when you’re shopping for a new policy, there are a few ways car insurance estimates can help you:
- Getting benchmarks: Getting a general idea of what your rate might be can help you recognize a good deal — or a bad deal — when you see one.
- Comparing providers: Compare the estimates from our calculator to the quotes you receive from providers. This is the most effective way to find the best price for car insurance.
- Comparing coverage: Our calculator lets you choose whether you want estimates for minimum- or full-coverage auto policies. You can compare those estimates to see how each level of coverage would fit into your budget.
MarketWatch Guides Tip
When you’re reading about car insurance, you may see the terms “estimates” and “quotes” used interchangeably. Here’s the difference:
- Estimate: An estimate is an approximation of what your rates will likely be. It’s based on how the details you provide line up with rate data, such as the information we use from Quadrant Information Services.
- Quote: A quote is an actual offer from an insurance provider based on your complete driver profile and requested coverage. It’s the actual rate you’d pay for coverage from that insurer (typically before you apply discounts).
Do Car Insurance Calculators Factor in Discounts?
Nearly every insurer offers at least a few discounts. They won’t show up on our car insurance calculator, and they typically won’t show up in quotes. This means you can probably expect to pay a little less than what you’re quoted in many cases.
“Inquire about discounts, including multi-policy bundling, low mileage and [good] student discounts. For instance, maintaining a B average can qualify young drivers for reduced rates.”
To use car insurance discounts to lower your premium, identify the ones that apply to you. These are some of the most common discounts you’ll find from car insurance companies:
- Multi-policy: Bundling auto coverage with another type, such as home insurance
- Multi-vehicle: Insuring more than one vehicle on the same policy
- Good driver: When you’ve gone a few years without any accidents or violations
- Good student: For students who hold a B average or better
- Student away at school: Offered to students who only drive their vehicles when they’re home
- Safety features: For those who have additional safety features installed
- Paperless billing: When you opt out of receiving paper bills
While most insurers list discounts on their websites, the actual selection may vary from one state to another. You can ask a local agent which discounts are available to you.
Frequently Asked Questions About Car Insurance Quotes
Car insurance quotes are calculated based on factors such as your age, location, driving record, and credit history. Insurance companies calculate rates for each driver individually.
You can calculate your insurance premiums with our car insurance calculator to get an idea of what you might pay and whether you’re getting a good deal. However, the best way to get the most accurate premium calculation is to get free quotes from car insurance providers.
The average cost of car insurance in the U.S. is $61 per month for minimum coverage and $203 per month for full coverage.
*Data accurate at time of publication.
link