Take it to the Bank: The Ultimate Guide to Cheap Car Insurance

Owning a vehicle is expensive. Car insurance doesn’t have to be.

Automobiles are by no means money printing machines. They depreciate around 10 percent as soon as they are driven off the lot. Beyond that, they continue to lose about 20 percent of their value every year on average, though this rate levels off as the vehicle ages. Car insurance, however, doesn’t have to be a taxing drain on savings.

Auto insurance quotes comparison is the most important way to ensure the cheapest premium for any given coverage. If stretching out your dollar is your goal, we’re here to help get you started on that comparison with the comprehensive guide to the cheapest car insurance from Insurify.

The Big Fish: Ranked

While none of the five biggest insurers are the cheapest nationally—or even regionally—they do dominate the majority of the American auto insurance industry. As such, any truly comprehensive guide would be remiss to omit them when discussing affordable car insurance. The upside of these providers is that they offer coverage in all 50 states. Additionally, they provide policies that meet a wide array of needs and which can be often be bundled with other products such as home insurance. To offer an idea of which large company may be the ideal choice for your wallet, here is how the major players stack up.

The quotes displayed for the Big Five—and for all other providers in this guide—are estimates that will vary based on your region and your profile. To get a more accurate idea of what individual rates to expect, be sure to explore the best insurance comparison sites for a personalized insurance comparison service.

Cheapest Large Providers

So if the major players— State Farm car insurance, GEICO car insurance, Progressive car insurance, Allstate car insurance, and Farmers car insurance —aren’t the most affordable insurance companies that cover a sizeable share of states, which are? When it comes to the most competitive policy prices, the market-share giants don’t come out on top.

These are the cheapest national and regional players on the car insurance scene:

Even though the Big Five dominate the market in terms of the number of motorists they insure, they are not even the sole providers to offer policies in all 50 states. EMC Car Insurance and USAA car insurance also offer coverage nationwide, and they do so at far more competitive rates. It is important to note that USAA insurance policies are restricted to current and former military service members and their families. That being said, when it comes to EMC Insurance, so long as you live in the United States, you’re in luck if you’re looking for a cheap policy!

The regional providers shown here don’t have the scope to offer quotes for drivers in every state in the nation. However, they offer insurance options in more than 10 states apiece, so if the policies—or more importantly for some, the price of those policies—appeal to you, there is a good chance that at least one will be offered where you live. As Western National Insurance Group is a collection of regional insurance companies, it is the largest mid-size insurer, offering policies to drivers in nearly half the states in the country.

The State of Cheap Insurance

Oftentimes, the cheapest options are the local insurers that can specialize in the coverage needs of a region’s drivers and offer the most competitive rates in exchange. In many cases, these companies may only offer these policies in the single state in which they’re located. These businesses may be hard to find, as they do not have the same name recognition nor advertising budgets as the bigger players, but they are worth exploring. The best news is that auto insurance quotes comparison services can do most of the legwork in finding them.

It’s worth noting that USAA provided the cheapest annual rates in a handful of states. That said, the insurance companies displayed above are available to both military personnel and civilians alike. However, service members living in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, or Washington, should investigate USAA insurance as it may be the cheapest option.

Drivers living in Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, Indiana, Idaho, Nebraska, or New Hampshire, may receive some of the cheapest rates in the nation. This may in part be due to both the lower cost of living and the lower accident rates in these less densely populated states.

A guide to the cheapest car insurance options is perhaps the most important for drivers in states with the most expensive average premiums. Motorists in Michigan, Florida, Louisiana, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Kentucky, Nevada, New York, Connecticut, and California see the steepest quotes for their motor vehicle policies nationwide. Michigan cheap car insurance policies are particularly hard to come by. The average annual premium in the Great Lake State is 1.72 times as expensive as even the second most expensive state for vehicle coverage. There are a handful of reasons for these expensive quotes in the Great Lake State, including statewide mandates for unlimited personal injury protection, insurance fraud, and high uninsured rates. In these states, comparing rates across different insurance companies is crucial to find the most affordable prices.

Tips for Securing Maximum Savings

• Compare auto insurance quotes. In order to find the best car insurance companies, it’s imperative to explore premiums from different insurers. Many drivers think that this is a one-time tip that will help them find the ideal company to select and then remain with, but you can only maximize savings by making comparison a routine. Drivers should check how companies’ rates have changed every six months and especially after life events such as marriage or after any tickets or other driving incidents have dropped off of their records.

• Explore different coverage levels. While it means that insurers will dish out less cash in the event of an incident, lowering your coverage means a lower month-to-month cost. Depending on the conditions of any auto loans and the age and condition of your car, it may not make sense to strip coverage for cheaper quotes, but selecting the state minimum coverage, raising comprehensive and collision deductibles, and even dropping comprehensive and collision coverage are all ways to reduce up-front costs.

• Find all applicable discounts. When it comes to shopping for auto coverage, there are often far more car insurance discounts available than many car owners realize. That’s why it’s important to call your insurer and ask about all of the discounts they offer to see which may apply to you. You may just save a pretty penny because of it!

Methodology

To determine which auto insurance companies are the most affordable deal for car owners, the data science team at Insurify explored quoting information from their database of over 1.6 million auto insurance applications as well as from public filings. The quotes displayed here are based on aggregations of sample rates for four driver profiles that included varied gender, ages, driving histories, credit, marital statuses, prior insurance, higher education, employment, and military service.