How much is car insurance per month? The national average, and why published averages differ

On the NAIC’s 2024 data, the average insured vehicle in the United States cost $1,431.63 for the year, which is $119 a month or $716 per six-month term. A vehicle carrying liability, collision and comprehensive together averaged $1,612.81, or $134 a month. Both are published averages of premium written in 2024, not quotes and not a price any one driver should expect.

The two NAIC numbers differ because they divide by different counts of cars. Quote-sample studies, which price a fixed driver profile with chosen limits, are a third kind of figure, and they run higher: a Policygenius page dated March 2024 reports $136 a month for full coverage, within about 2% of the NAIC combined premium, while NerdWallet’s October 2026 analysis reports $197 (46% above) and Experian’s October 2026 marketplace figure is $243 (81% above, and 2.03 times the NAIC expenditure).

Once the measure is matched, the gaps run from about 2% to 81%, and the drivers are rate year (2025 and 2026 against NAIC’s 2024), higher chosen limits, and a population of shoppers or marketplace buyers set against all written premium. A liability-only figure such as the NAIC’s $68 a month sits at about half of any full-coverage figure because it prices one coverage instead of three, which is a separate difference of measure.

Estimates and published averages, not a quote. Not insurance advice. State rules and insurer rules vary. Confirm requirements with your state insurance regulator or a licensed agent in your state.

The national answer, per month and per six-month term

The NAIC publishes its auto averages per insured vehicle per year, so every monthly figure on this page is a division, shown in full. Annual divided by 12 gives the monthly equivalent. Annual divided by 2 gives the cost of a six-month term, which is how many policies are written. Annual divided by 365 gives a daily rate, $3.92 for the 2024 expenditure. None of these is a billing amount. They restate a yearly average in a unit that matches how people think about the expense.

The three NAIC measures are defined on the methodology page and in the source tables. In one clause each: average expenditure is total written premium for the three coverages divided by liability car-years; combined average premium adds the average liability, collision and comprehensive premiums; liability average premium is liability premium per liability car-year. The monthly table below converts each countrywide figure for 2020 to 2024. The annual values behind it are in the figure further down and in the price trend dataset, so they are not repeated as a second table here.

Reading down the rows, the five-year change is large. Average expenditure rose from $1,047.75 in 2020 to $1,431.63 in 2024, a 36.64% increase that NAIC states in its release, or about $32 more per month. The combined average premium rose from $1,176.79 to $1,612.81, about $36 more per month, and the liability average premium from $631.28 to $813.27, about $15 more per month. NAIC states the 2024 increase for the combined average premium as 12.12%, and the unrounded Table 5 values reproduce it: 1,612.81 divided by 1,438.51 is 1.1212.

What dividing by 12 assumes

The unit behind every NAIC average is the car-year. NAIC defines a written car-year as 365 days of insurance coverage for one vehicle. Its own worked example in the supplement is a policy insuring two cars for six months at a cost of $600: the written exposure is 2 cars times one half year, which is 1 car-year, and the $600 is counted as written premium in the calendar year the policy was issued. That example is the whole method in miniature. Premium goes in the numerator when it is written, exposure goes in the denominator in car-years, and the quotient is a dollar figure per vehicle per year.

Three consequences follow for anyone converting to a monthly number.

First, the figure is per vehicle. A household with two insured cars is not at $119 a month; on the average it would be near twice that, since the average is a per-car figure. A household with one car is near the single-car value. The averages say nothing about how many vehicles you insure, so scale by vehicle count before comparing against a household budget, and then remember that multi-car discounts and driver counts push the real number away from simple multiplication.

Second, a six-month policy is not a monthly price times six that happens to equal the annual average. Take the $716 six-month figure that comes from halving the 2024 expenditure. It is an average over all the terms written, six-month and twelve-month alike, rescaled to half a year. A driver who actually has a six-month policy sees a charge for that term. A driver paying in installments sees a different monthly amount again, because installment plans can add fees and because the premium itself may be set differently for a monthly payer; that billing question is covered in monthly versus paid in full. The NAIC premium is written premium, not what was paid across twelve installments.

Third, the average mixes policy ages. Premium written in 2024 includes policies that began in January at January prices and policies that began in December at December prices, and renewals priced under rate filings approved at different times. NAIC also notes that its premium does not include adjustments for dividends to policyholders, so a policyholder with a participating policy who received a dividend paid less than the written premium.

Why combined premium sits $15 a month above expenditure

In 2024 the combined average premium was $181.18 a year higher than the average expenditure ($1,612.81 against $1,431.63), which is $15 a month. Both use the same three coverages and the same year. The difference is entirely a difference in denominators, and the supplement’s tables give enough to prove it.

Average expenditure divides the total premium for all three coverages by liability car-years. That choice assumes every insured vehicle carries liability but not necessarily collision or comprehensive, and NAIC states this assumption in the supplement text. Combined average premium instead computes a separate average for each coverage, dividing each coverage’s premium by that coverage’s own car-years, and then adds the three averages. That figure describes a vehicle that carries all three. A vehicle with liability only is counted in the expenditure but is not part of the collision or comprehensive averages.

The 2024 countrywide rows of Tables 1A to 3B show the scale of this. Liability was written on 238,174,969 car-years. Collision was written on 181,717,842 car-years, which is 76.3% of the liability count. Comprehensive was written on 188,741,530 car-years, which is 79.2%. In 2020 the shares were 75.1% for collision and 79.0% for comprehensive, so the gap in coverage counts has narrowed slightly but not closed.

Now the proof. Sum the three premium totals: $193,700,840,288 plus $93,836,827,744 plus $53,441,790,540 is $340,979,458,572. Divide by the liability car-years, 238,174,969, and the result is $1,431.63, the Table 4 expenditure. The same data therefore produces both figures, and the only question is what each divides by.

The gap itself decomposes exactly. Combined premium counts collision at its full $516.39 for every vehicle, while expenditure effectively counts it at $516.39 times 76.3%. The shortfall is $516.39 times (1 minus 0.763), about $122.41. Comprehensive contributes $283.15 times (1 minus 0.792), about $58.77. The two shortfalls add to $181.18, the whole gap. In monthly terms, about $10 of the $15 comes from collision and about $5 from comprehensive.

One caution on interpretation. The difference between liability car-years and collision or comprehensive car-years is consistent with a share of insured vehicles carrying liability only, but the tables do not count those vehicles directly; exposures are reported by statistical agents and can differ for other reasons. The accurate statement is the arithmetic one: the averages are over different car-year counts. For the coverage choice itself, see liability-only versus full coverage.

Which NAIC figure fits what you want to know

The three measures answer three distinct questions, and the monthly conversion does not change that.

If the question is “what did the average insured vehicle cost, whatever coverage it carried?”, the answer is the average expenditure: $119 a month in 2024. NAIC describes it as an estimate of what consumers spent, on average, for auto insurance. This is the figure closest to a national household-budget number for one vehicle, with the limits and deductibles people actually chose already baked in.

If the question is “what does a vehicle with liability, collision and comprehensive cost on average?”, the answer is the combined average premium: $134 a month in 2024. It assumes all three coverages and takes each coverage’s average from the vehicles that carry it, so it is the NAIC figure that most resembles a full-coverage policy. It is still an average over all limits and deductibles sold, so it does not describe any particular set of limits.

If the question is “what does the liability part cost?”, the answer is the liability average premium: $68 a month in 2024. The NAIC liability premium is broader than the bodily injury and property damage a driver usually thinks of. The supplement lists, among others, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverages, medical payments, and, in Michigan, property protection insurance and no-fault personal injury protection. The liability figure is therefore a bundle of coverages, and its composition differs by state, which is one reason state liability averages differ on the state rate map.

The supplement also prints a median state for 2024: a median state combined average premium of $1,398 and a median state average expenditure of $1,231. Those are $116.50 and $103 a month. A median across states is an unweighted middle value among state results, while the countrywide figure weights each vehicle equally, so the two are different statistics and the median is not a lower estimate of the same thing. NAIC adds a caution that applies to the whole report: aggregate written premiums and exposures are used with no distinction among policyholder classifications, vehicle characteristics, or the selection of limits or deductibles.

Quote-sample studies: what a “full coverage” average measures

Most pages that rank for “average car insurance cost” do not use NAIC data. They publish an average of quoted rates for a defined driver, or an average of policies sold through one marketplace. The methods are legitimate and each answers a different question from the NAIC’s, so the figures are placed side by side here, not treated as corrections of one another. Each description below comes from the publisher’s own methodology text, and none is a ranking or a recommendation of any site.

The Policygenius page on what car insurance costs, last updated March 1, 2024, reports a national average of $136 per month ($1,638 per year) for full coverage and $51 per month ($617 per year) for minimum coverage. It states the rates are for “a 30-year-old driver of a 2017 Toyota Camry with a clean driving record”, drawn from “hundreds of thousands of rates from every ZIP code and every state (including the District of Columbia)”, with liability of $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident for bodily injury, $50,000 for property damage, matching uninsured and underinsured motorist limits, and $500 collision and comprehensive deductibles. NerdWallet’s page, which cites its October 2026 rates analysis, gives $2,361 a year (about $197 a month) for full coverage. Its table labels that figure a median annual rate and its text calls it an average rate. The profile is a 35-year-old with a good credit-based insurance score, no moving violations and a 2023 Toyota Camry LE driven 12,000 miles a year, with bodily injury liability of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per crash, property damage of $50,000, uninsured motorist bodily injury at the same $100,000 and $300,000, and $1,000 collision and comprehensive deductibles. The rates are averaged from public filings obtained by Quadrant Information Services, across all ZIP codes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Experian’s page, dated October 13, 2026, takes a different route. It reports $2,912 a year ($243 a month) for full coverage, drawn from “real policies sold through Experian’s insurance marketplace”, which works with more than 30 carriers. It defines full coverage as policies that include comprehensive and collision, defines minimum coverage as policies without them, and does not state limits or deductibles. Its averages cover policies sold in the 12 complete months up to the indicated month, across all genders and ages; whether an insurer may price by gender at all is a state rule, covered in which states ban gender as a rating factor. The page dates its overall average to September 2026 and does not give a separate date for the full-coverage figure.

Take the ratios as arithmetic. Against the NAIC 2024 combined average premium of $1,612.81, the March 2024 Policygenius figure is 1.02 times, the October 2026 NerdWallet figure is 1.46 times and the Experian figure is 1.81 times. Against the NAIC expenditure of $1,431.63 they are 1.14, 1.65 and 2.03 times. So even when the coverage is matched to full coverage, the gap between sources runs from about 2% to 81%, and the evidence does not support the idea that the disagreement is only a matter of definitions. The definitions explain part of it; the rest has identifiable causes.

The first cause is the rate year. NAIC’s newest year is 2024, while NerdWallet and Experian describe 2026 prices, and the price trend page shows how far the BLS index moved between those years. The Policygenius page does not state a rate year and was updated in March 2024, so its closeness to NAIC 2024 does not show that the methods agree. The second is limits and deductibles. NerdWallet prices 100/300/50 liability with UM at 100/300, higher than the 50/100/50 profile above, and the NAIC averages whatever buyers chose, which includes many state-minimum and low-limit policies. Higher deductibles lower a price and higher limits raise it, and the net effect depends on the mix. The third is the population. A quote sample prices every car in every ZIP code with all three coverages, where the NAIC figure counts every written car-year, including liability-only vehicles. A marketplace figure counts policies sold to people who were shopping, who are a different group from all policyholders, many of whom renew without shopping.

A fourth caution is that these causes overlap and none can be sized from the published pages. A clean-record 30-year-old or 35-year-old in a late-model Camry is one profile, so a study built on it cannot say where the average buyer sits. Experian’s “minimum coverage” figure of $1,584 a year (about $132 a month) is for policies without collision and comprehensive, not for state-minimum limits, and it is 1.95 times the NAIC liability average of $813.27 per liability car-year, so the gap is not explained by coverage count alone. The Policygenius minimum-coverage figure of $51 a month sits below the NAIC liability average of $68, which is consistent with minimum limits costing less than the broader liability coverages buyers actually purchase, though the two are not the same measure.

A quoted rate is also an offer to a hypothetical applicant, while written premium is what was sold, so the populations differ even when the profile is set aside.

A different kind of published average is an insurer’s statement about its own policies. Progressive’s answers page, updated September 3, 2026, reports averages for its six-month, liability-only policies of $87.56 a month for low-cost states, $112.80 for medium-cost states and $165.02 for high-cost states. The page’s data year is 2025 (page covers 2024 to 2025 data), and it notes that individual rates may be higher or lower. That is one company’s written book, for one coverage type, grouped by state cost tier, and it is not a national average. It is cited only to show that “average monthly cost” can describe several different populations, and it is not a comparison of insurers.

The BLS index is a price change, not a dollar level

The third number readers meet is the Consumer Price Index for motor vehicle insurance from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It has no dollar value. It is an index number that tracks the price of the same insurance over time, and the useful reading is its percent change. Table 2 of the BLS September 2026 release shows the 12-month unadjusted change in motor vehicle insurance as -5.0%, with a relative importance of 2.531 in August 2026.

The BLS factsheet on motor vehicle insurance explains why that cannot be turned into a monthly premium. The CPI selects actual policies, holds the driver characteristics constant and follows prices over time, using premiums calculated for policies with unchanging characteristics rather than the actual premiums paid. Pricing is spread over three periods covering the collection month. Policies for motorcycles and assigned-risk drivers count in the index weight but are excluded from pricing, and vehicles used mainly for business and policies written for farmers or ranchers are excluded from the index. The NAIC average takes in residual-market business and does not hold anything constant.

So the two do not combine. Applying -5.0% to $119 to obtain a 2026 monthly figure would turn a price change on fixed policies into a change in an average that also moves with what people buy, which cars are insured and what they choose to cover. The two also cover different periods: the latest NAIC data year is 2024, while the BLS figure runs to September 2026. The monthly index values, the arithmetic behind each change and the reasons a falling index can sit beside a higher renewal are set out on the price trend page, and this page does not repeat them.

Where a monthly average stops describing a bill

A national per-month figure is a useful anchor and a poor prediction. The places where it breaks are specific, and most of them can be checked against a real policy. Other national and state datasets are collected under market data.

State. The supplement reports a median state combined average premium of $1,398 against a countrywide $1,613, and the individual state rows run well above and below both. A driver in a high-cost state is not near $134 a month. The state rate map places each state’s NAIC figure beside the national one, and the Car Rate Checker compares a quote with the state benchmark. Use the state figure for any local comparison and the national figure only for context.

Coverage. A policy at state-minimum limits with no physical damage coverage sits near the liability line in the chart, and a policy with high limits, low deductibles and added coverages sits above the combined line. The NAIC averages do not break results out by limit or deductible. A quote that looks high against $134 may simply carry more coverage, which is why comparing quotes at matched limits matters before any benchmark is applied.

Driver and vehicle. NAIC states its aggregates carry no distinction among policyholder classifications or vehicle characteristics. Age, record, credit-based factors where permitted, garaging address and vehicle all move an individual premium well away from any average. The causes are laid out in why car insurance is so high.

Timing. The newest NAIC data year is 2024. A policy bought in 2026 is priced under filings made after that data year ended. The average therefore describes a past year, and the direction of travel since then is a question for a price index, not for this table.

Scope. The NAIC supplement covers private passenger auto insurance and excludes motor homes, recreational vehicles, campers, travel trailers, all-terrain vehicles, antique autos, snowmobiles, golf carts and similar vehicles, so its written premium can differ from a state’s premium in insurers’ financial statements. It includes both the voluntary and residual markets.

Reproducing the per-month numbers from the NAIC PDF

Every figure above can be rebuilt from the supplement, the NAIC 2024 Auto Insurance Database Average Premium Supplement dated September 2026, which the NAIC announced in a news release on October 1, 2026. The file has 2024 data in the left numeric column and 2020 in the right, with the states in alphabetical order and a countrywide row at the foot of each table.

Start with the tables that carry the finished averages. Table 4, average expenditure, is on printed page 18. Table 5, combined average premium, is on printed page 19. Table 1C, the liability average premium, is on printed page 11. In each of them, go to the last row, labelled Countrywide, and read across: for 2024 to 2020 the expenditure row reads 1,431.63, 1,281.61, 1,124.61, 1,060.83 and 1,047.75, the combined row reads 1,612.81, 1,438.51, 1,257.59, 1,189.15 and 1,176.79, and the liability row reads 813.27, 736.43, 660.94, 631.73 and 631.28. Divide any of them by 12 for the monthly equivalent, or by 2 for six months. One practical warning: if the PDF text is copied into a spreadsheet or a text file, the countrywide rows can come out misaligned with the year columns, because the last rows of the tables are laid out differently from the state rows. Check each value against the column heading on the page.

To go one level deeper, use the building-block tables. Table 1A (printed page 9) gives liability written premium, Table 1B (page 10) gives liability written car-years, and Table 1C (page 11) gives the quotient. Tables 2A, 2B and 2C (pages 12 to 14) do the same for collision, and Tables 3A, 3B and 3C (pages 15 to 17) for comprehensive. Add the three countrywide premium totals from the A tables, divide by the liability car-years from Table 1B, and the result should match Table 4. Divide each coverage’s premium by its own car-years from the B tables and add the three results to reproduce Table 5.

The formulas are printed on the supplement’s Terms and Calculations page, which gives average expenditure as the sum of liability, collision and comprehensive written premium divided by liability written exposures, and combined average premium as the sum of the three coverage averages. The report introduction states the 2024 headline values. It says the countrywide combined average premium rose 12.12% in 2024 and the countrywide average expenditure rose 11.71%, and gives the median-state figures used above. The introduction prints the combined figure as $1,612 where Table 5 reads $1,612.81, so use the table value.

Last, check which edition you are reading. The supplement states that prior-year data were adjusted to reflect the most current information, so historical averages may not match earlier reports. A comparison shows it: the 2023 supplement, dated June 2025, printed a 2023 countrywide expenditure of $1,281.60 and a combined average premium of $1,438.46, where the 2024 supplement prints $1,281.61 and $1,438.51 for the same year. The differences are a few cents here, but they are why a table built from one edition should be labelled with the edition.

Questions readers ask

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