NerdWallet’s state of insurance

Rates for auto and homeowners insurance have been on the rise. NerdWallet’s here to help consumers navigate those changes.

Buying a car and buying a house are among the most expensive purchases a consumer will ever make. That’s why it’s so important for people to be able to find the best auto insurance and homeowners insurance policies for their needs.

Each year, NerdWallet analyzes more than 2.5 trillion rates, provided by Quadrant Information Services, for both auto insurance and homeowners insurance. From the cheapest coverage to the best policies, the Nerds have you covered.

Table of contents

Auto insurance

Home insurance

State of the industry

Auto Insurance

The cost of car insurance

The national average cost of auto insurance is $1,982 a year, or $165 a month.

That's 20% higher compared to last year's average annual cost of $1,657.

How much is car insurance in my state?

Florida, Louisiana and Rhode Island were the most expensive states in which to purchase auto insurance.

Wyoming, Vermont and Massachusetts were the cheapest states in which to purchase auto insurance.

Here’s how much auto insurance rates changed by state:

State	Average annual rate	Percent change from prior year
Alabama	$1,957	+18%
Alaska	$1,776	+25%
Arizona	$2,360	+32%
Arkansas	$2,095	+27%
California	$1,660	+11%
Colorado	$2,670	+25%
Connecticut	$2,916	+23%
Delaware	$2,330	+14%
Florida	$3,797	+17%
Georgia	$2,521	+41%
Hawaii	$1,889	+9%
Idaho	$1,361	+12%
Illinois	$1,927	+32%
Indiana	$1,731	+37%
Iowa	$1,676	+19%
Kansas	$2,412	+35%
Kentucky	$2,965	+16%
Louisiana	$3,608	+19%
Maine	$1,407	+31%
Maryland	$2,409	+24%
Massachusetts	$1,348	+13%
Michigan	$2,496	+11%
Minnesota	$1,872	+23%
Mississippi	$2,118	+32%
Missouri	$2,325	+18%
Montana	$2,185	+22%
Nebraska	$1,691	+17%
Nevada	$2,603	+3%
New Hampshire	$1,406	+11%
New Jersey	$2,479	+8%
New Mexico	$2,030	+11%
New York	$2,209	+11%
North Carolina	$1,597	+16%
North Dakota	$2,329	+55%
Ohio	$1,380	+20%
Oklahoma	$2,261	+10%
Oregon	$1,874	+8%
Pennsylvania	$2,063	+27%
Rhode Island	$3,341	+10%
South Carolina	$2,291	+17%
South Dakota	$1,838	+19%
Tennessee	$1,958	+11%
Texas	$2,966	+35%
Utah	$1,795	+10%
Vermont	$1,251	+3%
Virginia	$1,787	+18%
Washington	$1,723	+7%
Washington, D.C.	$2,336	+25%
West Virginia	$2,036	+33%
Wisconsin	$1,817	+29%
Wyoming	$1,069	+4%

Why did my car insurance rates go up?

You may be wondering why your auto insurance rates are so high. Here are some common reasons and how they can affect your rates.

Credit

For drivers with poor credit, the average rate for car insurance is $3,222 a year — 63% higher than for those with good credit.

Age

Your age can greatly affect your rates. A 35-year-old with good credit and a clean driving record would pay an average of $1,982 a year. Contrast that with a 20-year-old ($4,110) and a 60-year-old ($1,713).

Driving history

Drivers who cause an accident can expect to see a 48% increase compared with those with a clean record. Having a recent DUI could increase a driver’s rates by 86%, and for those with a speeding ticket, rates could go up 25%.

Type of car

The make and model of your car will affect your rates. The Subaru Outback, Subaru Crosstrek and Honda CR-V LX were the three cheapest cars to insure, among best-selling new models.

🤓Nerdy Tip

Some states limit what insurers can consider when determining car insurance rates. For example, California, Hawaii and Massachusetts block the use of credit in setting rates.

Home Insurance

The cost of homeowners coverage

The national average cost of home insurance is $1,915 a year, or $160 a month.

That's 6% higher compared to last year's annual average of $1,805.

How much is homeowners insurance in my state?

Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska were the most expensive states in which to purchase homeowners insurance.

Hawaii, Delaware and Vermont were the cheapest states in which to purchase homeowners insurance.

If you're looking for the best deal, Progressive and State Farm offered the most affordable average annual home insurance rates among the nation's largest insurers.

Estimate your costs: Check out NerdWallet's home insurance calculator to see how much average homeowners insurance rates are in your ZIP code.

Here’s how much homeowners insurance rates changed by state:

State	Average annual rate	Percent change from prior year
Alabama	$3,140	+14.60%
Alaska	$1,160	-7.94%
Arizona	$2,135	+10.34%
Arkansas	$3,355	+12.40%
California	$1,250	+2.46%
Colorado	$3,820	+6.26%
Connecticut	$1,575	+8.25%
Delaware	$860	+0%
Florida	$2,625	+17.98%
Georgia	$2,345	+6.83%
Hawaii	$515	+7.29%
Idaho	$1,510	+14.83%
Illinois	$2,060	+7.85%
Indiana	$1,975	+1.54%
Iowa	$2,215	+5.23%
Kansas	$3,570	+4.23%
Kentucky	$2,190	+12.60%
Louisiana	$2,240	+0%
Maine	$1,075	+5.39%
Maryland	$1,700	+5.59%
Massachusetts	$1,545	+5.10%
Michigan	$1,785	+7.21%
Minnesota	$2,375	-1.66%
Mississippi	$3,475	-0.29%
Missouri	$2,905	+1.22%
Montana	$2,605	+16.04%
Nebraska	$4,135	+2.10%
Nevada	$1,290	+1.18%
New Hampshire	$1,000	-0.50%
New Jersey	$1,150	+2.68%
New Mexico	$1,595	-9.38%
New York	$1,715	+5.54%
North Carolina	$1,975	+1.80%
North Dakota	$2,445	+4.04%
Ohio	$1,390	+7.75%
Oklahoma	$5,495	+3.58%
Oregon	$1,255	+14.09%
Pennsylvania	$1,410	+4.44%
Rhode Island	$2,070	+14.05%
South Carolina	$2,250	+9.22%
South Dakota	$2,810	-2.60%
Tennessee	$2,435	-0.61%
Texas	$4,400	-1.57%
Utah	$1,140	+11.22%
Vermont	$870	0%
Virginia	$1,445	+5.09%
Washington	$1,225	+2.94%
Washington, D.C.	$1,190	-0.83%
West Virginia	$1,600	-5.60%
Wisconsin	$1,300	+9.70%
Wyoming	$1,555	0%

Why did my home insurance rates go up?

Where you live isn't the only factor that can affect your homeowners insurance rates. Here are some other common factors.

Credit

Homeowners with poor credit can expect rates of $3,320 a year for insurance, a 73% increase compared to rates for those with good credit.

Age of house

Newer homes can be cheaper to insure because they’re typically built with up-to-date safety features, while older homes — which are less likely to have them — can be more expensive to insure. A house built in 1984 costs 69% more on average to insure than one constructed in 2023.

Amount of coverage

The amount of included dwelling coverage — used when rebuilding or repairing damage to your house's structure — can significantly affect rates. Policies with a $200,000 dwelling coverage limit cost $1,420 a year on average, while those with a $500,000 dwelling coverage limit are more than double at $2,935.

Previous claims

Homeowners who have filed a single claim can expect to pay 9% more on average compared with those who haven’t.

🤓Nerdy Tip

Having poor credit increases your annual premium more than filing a claim on your policy does. If you’re a homeowner with poor credit, consider shopping around for quotes to get the best rate.

Don’t own a house? Explore NerdWallet’s helpful resources on renters insurance and condo insurance.

State of the Insurance Industry

NerdWallet Insights

Americans are feeling the impact of rising insurance rates on their wallets, according to a 2023 NerdWallet study conducted by The Harris Poll among 2,066 American adults.

Rising rates

About 1 in 5 owners of auto or homeowners insurance said their rate had risen a great deal in the last 12 months, while about 3 in 5 said their rates had risen in general.

Getting the best deal

Millennials, ages 27 to 42, are comparison shopping to find the best rates. Almost 2 in 5 said they’ve shopped in the past 12 months to lower their rates, while 45% said they would do so in the next 12 months.

Disappearing insurers

Nearly 1 in 10 Americans with homeowners insurance said they were worried their insurance company would stop providing coverage in their state.

Why rates are rising

It's true that insurance rates as a whole are going up, due to multiple economic factors. Some insurers have stopped writing policies in money-losing states, like California, where regulators have made it difficult for insurers to raise rates. And in disaster-prone Florida, most major insurers have pulled out, significantly limiting the pool of insurers to choose from for residents in the Sunshine State.

Here's a look at three top reasons insurance rates are on the rise.

Inflation

Inflation has increased the cost of doing business for insurers, from rebuilding homes and repairing cars to covering more expensive medical costs. Because insurers have to pay out higher claims, they’re raising premiums to help cover the added expense.

Climate change

Natural disasters are increasing in frequency, and few states are insulated from them. From wildfires on the West Coast to hurricanes affecting the East Coast, these events lead to more claim payouts from insurers. That's compounded by the fact that more people are moving to disaster-prone states like Florida and Texas.

Rising reinsurance rates

Insurance companies also need insurance, which is known as reinsurance, to help pay out claims. Reinsurers are typically global companies that respond to disasters worldwide, so even events far from home — such as wildfires in Australia and earthquakes in Turkey — can lead to higher premiums for you.

🤓Nerdy Tip

Many insurers will offer a discount if you purchase a home and auto insurance bundle from them. Although discounts vary, you can save on average 18% by bundling, according to NerdWallet’s analysis of rates from Allstate, Farmers, Nationwide and State Farm.

Are your rates too expensive? Here are some top ways to get the cheapest car insurance rates and the cheapest homeowners insurance rates.

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The cost of climate change: How to protect your home from disaster

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Complete guide to hurricane insurance

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Why you can expect to pay more for car insurance

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How one driver saved on auto insurance

By Isabel Contreras

Reach Out

Want to speak to a NerdWallet expert? If you’re a reporter on deadline or a journalist looking for more information about our insurance data and studies, we’re here to help.

Reach Out

Want to speak to a NerdWallet expert? If you’re a reporter on deadline or a journalist looking for more information about our insurance data and studies, we’re here to help.

Methodology

To calculate auto and home insurance rates, NerdWallet averaged rates based on public filings obtained by pricing analytics company Quadrant Information Services. These are sample rates, and your own rates will be different.

Auto insurance

For auto insurance, we examined median rates for 35-year-old men and women for all ZIP codes in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Although it’s one of the largest insurers in the country, Liberty Mutual is not included in our rates analysis due to a lack of publicly available information.

In our analysis, “good drivers” had no moving violations on record; a “good driving” discount was included for this profile. Our “good” and “poor” credit rates are based on credit score approximations and do not account for proprietary scoring criteria used by insurance providers.

We used a 3-year-old Toyota Camry L for all drivers and assumed 12,000 annual miles driven.

Sample drivers had the following coverage limits:

$100,000 bodily injury liability coverage per person.
$300,000 bodily injury liability coverage per crash.
$50,000 property damage liability coverage per crash.
$100,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage per person.
$300,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage per crash.
Collision coverage with $1,000 deductible.
Comprehensive coverage with $1,000 deductible.

In states where required, minimum additional coverages were added. We used the same assumptions for all other driver profiles, with the following exceptions:

We changed the credit tier from “good” to “poor” as reported to the insurer to see rates for drivers with poor credit.
For drivers with one at-fault crash, we added a single at-fault crash that happened six months ago, resulting in $10,000 in property damage and no bodily injury claim.
For drivers with a DUI, we added a single drunken driving violation that happened six months ago.
For drivers with a ticket, we added a single speeding violation for driving 16 mph over the speed limit.

Homeowners insurance

For homeowners insurance, we averaged rates for 40-year-old homeowners from a variety of insurance companies in every ZIP code across the U.S. All rates are rounded to the nearest $5.

Sample homeowners were nonsmokers with good credit living in a single-family, two-story home built in 1984. They had a $1,000 deductible and the following coverage limits:

$300,000 in dwelling coverage.
$30,000 in other structures coverage.
$150,000 in personal property coverage.
$60,000 in loss of use coverage.
$300,000 in liability coverage.
$1,000 in medical payments coverage.

We made minor changes to the sample policy in cases where rates for the above coverage limits or deductibles weren’t available.

We used the same assumptions for all other homeowner profiles, with the following exceptions:

For homeowners with a claims history, we added a single wind damage claim.
We changed the credit tier from “good” to “poor” as reported to the insurer to see rates for homeowners with poor credit.
To see the effect of changing your dwelling coverage amount, we changed the limit to $200,000 or $500,000. This also changed some of the other coverage limits that were tied to the dwelling coverage amount. For example, the other structures coverage limit is typically 10% of the dwelling coverage amount, so our sample policy with $200,000 of dwelling coverage had $20,000 of other structures coverage.