Best Cheap Car Insurance in Massachusetts for 2018

If you’re looking for cheap car insurance in Massachusetts, comparison shopping is key. The insurance company with the best price will often vary depending on your situation.

NerdWallet researched rates from the 10 largest auto insurance companies in the Bay State to help you find the best deal.

Included in this page are the cheapest rates for:

Good drivers

Young drivers

Drivers with one at-fault crash

Retired drivers

Also in this article

Minimum car insurance requirements in Massachusetts

Car insurance for high-risk drivers

Find your match: Who’s the cheapest carrier for you?

Cheapest for good drivers

For drivers with no at-fault accidents, DUIs or moving violations.

Plymouth Rock Assurance quoted the cheapest auto insurance rate we found for good drivers in Massachusetts, coming in at $624 per year, just $52 per month.

Drivers typically stand to benefit from car insurance discounts if they’ve avoided claims for several years.

If your insurer uses the Massachusetts Safe Driver Insurance Plan — a point-based system that adjusts rates based on your driving record — you’ll automatically receive a discount if you’ve gone five or more years with no incidents.

Cheapest for young drivers

For drivers in their early 20s.

Young drivers often must budget tightly for car insurance and typically need less coverage than older motorists. So for this comparison, we ran quotes for drivers in their 20s carrying the lowest required coverage limits in Massachusetts. The rates were far cheaper than those for other groups, where we used much higher liability limits.

Plymouth Rock had the cheapest car insurance in Massachusetts for young drivers, at $316 per year. Arbella and Safety Insurance rounded out the list of the cheapest options for this group. This year, there’s also an honorable mention for Hanover, which came in at only $1 more per year than Safety Insurance.

Cheapest for drivers with one at-fault crash

Causing an accident can put a big dent in your wallet. The lowest average car insurance price for drivers in the group was from Plymouth Rock Assurance at $1,025 per year. This was about $401 more than the cheapest rate we found for incident-free motorists of the same age, also from Plymouth Rock.

Even if you have an at-fault crash, there’s still plenty of reason to shop around. There was nearly a $1,900 difference between the lowest and highest quotes among the state’s largest insurers, proving just how much you could potentially save by comparing rates.

Cheapest for retired drivers

For drivers in their mid- to late 60s who no longer use their car for commuting.

Since retirees generally spend less time behind the wheel than their commuting counterparts, we looked at rates for drivers who travel 50% fewer annual miles than other groups. Safety Insurance fetched the cheapest average quote in our results, roughly $44 a month, with Plymouth Rock not far behind and Mapfre Insurance rounding out the top three.

Retirees in Massachusetts can also score an additional price break on their rates. The state requires insurers to provide a discount to drivers age 65 or older.

Minimum coverage requirements in Massachusetts

Bay State residents are required to carry liability insurance, uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage and personal injury protection, or PIP, in at least the following amounts:

• $20,000 bodily injury liability per person
• $40,000 bodily injury liability per crash
• $5,000 property damage liability per crash
• $20,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury per person
• $40,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury per crash
• $8,000 PIP

Check out NerdWallet’s guide to minimum car insurance requirements by state to learn how the key pieces of your Massachusetts auto policy work and how to select coverage limits for your situation.

For more help finding cheap car insurance in Massachusetts, use NerdWallet’s rate comparison tool.

Car insurance for high-risk drivers

If you’re unable to buy car insurance on the voluntary market due to a spotty driving record or other factors, an insurance agent can submit an application for you to the Massachusetts Automobile Insurance Plan. This is the system for providing insurance to risky drivers. All car insurers in Massachusetts must take a portion of the state’s high-risk drivers.

Here’s a summary of where you’ll find the cheapest insurance in Massachusetts, by category: