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Best Car Insurance for College Students
Statistically speaking, young drivers are prone to car accidents. As such, college students get costlier car insurance premiums than seasoned drivers. Not exactly good news, considering that students also need to keep up with tuition expenses, books, supplies, and room and board while trying to study.
However, the situation is not that grim, and there are plenty of student discounts to lower your car insurance rates.
Best Car Insurance Companies for College Students in November 2024
Allstate
Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.
With thousands of offices across the country, Allstate is a go-to provider for those who want quality insurance and great customer service. Various discounts and substantial coverage options will accommodate the requirements of all college students. Read more
GEICO
Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.
GEICO comes with amazing discounts and coverage, a great online platform, and one of the best apps on the market. Choosing GEICO as your provider is certainly a step in the right direction. Read more
Liberty Mutual Insurance
Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.
Liberty Mutual is an insurance company founded in 1912 that has maintained a reputation for transparency with its customers during over a century of operation. Their immense expertise extends to college students too, so you’re sure to be well-taken-care-of here. Read more
Progressive
Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.
Progressive is the third-biggest property and casualty insurance company in the US, with more than 20 million happy customers. Great bundle discounts and a plethora of coverage options are attractive prospects for student drivers. Read more
A Quick Guide to Car Insurance for Students
Finding the right car insurance policy is not a simple matter: It involves a lot of research and applying online for quotes from multiple companies. Knowing what to expect can help you greatly in finding the best price.
Before you put your name on the first insurance policy that comes your way, it would be best to cover the basics first.
Insurance Basics
Since car owners are required by law to have at least basic personal car insurance, it’s good practice to know what it is and how it works.
Car insurance is a contract between the insurer (the company) and the insured (in this case, the student). Per that contract, the insurer must cover any damages in the event of an accident or theft of the vehicle, while the insured has to pay a monthly premium to be eligible for that protection.
Types of Expenses Covered by Insurance
Obligatory car insurance has to cover two things - bodily injury liability and property damage liability, but some states may require you to have more comprehensive coverage, so you’d do well to get acquainted with all your options.
A standard policy will at least cover:
- Bodily injury liability - any injury or fatality caused by the person driving your car.
- Property damage liability - damages caused to physical property by the driver of the insured vehicle.
Optional coverages include:
- Personal injury protection - compensation for medical bills for injuries caused to you or your passengers. This usually covers any other expenses caused by the accident.
- Uninsured and underinsured motorist - This type of coverage is for damage reimbursement in case the driver that caused the accident is uninsured and can’t cover the damage. The underinsured part covers situations where the insurance plan of the other driver can’t cover all the expenses.
Your coverage should ideally include:
- Collision coverage - for any damage caused to your car as a result of a collision with another car or object. The damage will be covered even if you caused the accident.
- Comprehensive or other than collision coverage (OTC) - for any type of theft or collision, as the name suggests.
- Glass coverage - some providers include this as a separate option which commonly requires no deductible and will cover the replacement of any car window that needs it.
Pricing
Most, if not all, insurance companies have an online form for calculating a precise quote for you. Getting affordable car insurance will depend on multiple factors, so the parameters we used for our review and the quotes we got for them should serve as a ballpark estimation of the costs you can expect.
However, this doesn’t have to be the case. You may be eligible for discounts that we weren’t offered.
Discounts
Depending on who the insured party is, they may be eligible for various discounts. Student drivers have plenty of reductions at their disposal, even though their insurance plans are by default more expensive. Below, we cover the usual ways to get cheaper insurance.
Good student discounts are offered to young drivers with higher than average GPA. This results in lower premiums on their insurance because insurance companies consider these individuals as more responsible and therefore a lesser risk.
Some companies offer a “distant college student discount” on car insurance policies for those attending college at least 100 miles away from your place of residence, and the car remains with your parents or guardians. This is a discount on the parents’ policy commonly applied for students under 25.
You can get cheaper quotes if you belong to groups affiliated with the insurance company, like sororities, fraternities, or honors societies.
Multiple policy discounts apply if you have more than one car, house, or other type of property covered by the same insurance provider.
Any steps you take to secure your vehicle from theft may net you an anti-theft discount on comprehensive coverage in twelve states: Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington. This discount takes 15%-20% off your policy price on average and can go up to 30%.
Cheap policies are also available for those that attend defensive driving classes. Depending on the state and insurer, students could get a 5% - 20% discount on their premium. These courses usually teach attendees how to avoid accidents caused by bad weather or traffic.
Unique Features
Modern insurance companies offer multiple apps with built-in roadside assistance requests, vehicle maintenance scheduling, digital documentation, easy damage estimates, and more, with most insurance policies.
Personalized discounts for responsible driving are also a fantastic way to get the cheapest insurance offer possible. The mobile apps we mentioned can submit your driving data for review, allowing the company to send you personalized quotes based on your record.
Top Car Insurance Companies for College Students in 2024:
- GEICO - Best Overall
- Liberty Mutual - Best Personalized Pricing
- Progressive - Best Good Driver Rewards
- Allstate - Best Mobile Apps
Detailed Reviews of Car Insurance Providers for College Students
Allstate
- • Great student discounts
- • A large office network
- • Great mobile app
This Fortune 500 company is an insurance industry veteran founded in 1931.
Financial Strength
As you might expect from the 72nd-biggest company in the US, Allstate has enough financial resources to reliably cover its customers, and it’s rated as “superior” or A+ by AM Best and Fitch Ratings.
Discounts and Pricing
Allstate has a great online application form. It will quickly give you a precise quote, and you can easily adjust your plan and potentially add discounts.
The default discounts for online payments and having a secure vehicle resulted in a monthly payment of $485.
You can also opt for Allstate’s Easy Pay Plan and eSmart discounts, so you can claim documents and process payments online.
These discounts go up to 5% and 10% respectively. The fantastic Milewise program offers pay-by-mile costs, saving money for students who don’t use their car too much.
Students with a GPA of 2.7 or higher are eligible for a good discount that would shave off another $451 per year. And if we took some safety courses, the driver education discount amounted to a further $334 saved per year.
With 5 out of 8 discounts applied, the monthly insurance of $485 shrank to $335 - a respectable deal most applicants can make.
Here are all the discounts Allstate offers to student drivers:
- teenSmart discount - 10% off for teens that complete this driver education program;
- Good student discount - 20% off for full-time students with a GPA of 2.7 or higher;
- New car discount - up to 30% off;
- Anti-lock brake discounts - 10% off;
- Resident student discount for those attending college more than 100 miles from home - 35 % off for a college student who only drives occasionally and leaves the car at his parents’ house most of the time.
- Anti-theft discount - up to 10% off for using additional anti-theft devices.
You can also become eligible for a discount after maintaining a responsible driving practice and not submitting a claim for twelve months.
You’ll get $100 knocked off your collision deductible when you sign up, and another $100 for each accident-free year.
Insurance Coverage
The extensive list of liabilities Allstate can cover as part of its offer depends on your premium. The most important coverage insures you against bodily injury, property damage, uninsured or underinsured motorist, and death indemnity.
The personal injury protection deductible for our quote was $2500 while the collision and comprehensive deductibles were $1250.
You can include additional coverages or adjust the offered ones to see if Allstate has a plan for you.
Unique Offer
Allstate’s network extends across the country, with thousands of offices where you can find an insurance agent to explain all the nuances involved in the policies.
Allstate has two apps: Allstate Mobile enables easy payments and it’s packed with useful features for requesting roadside assistance, submitting a quick claim, reviewing your policy, and, most importantly, Drivewise.
This feature rewards you for safe driving, and you get a discount on your policy just for activating it. If you don’t have a moving violation or accident within six months, you can earn cash back.
The other one is the QuickTrip app, which optimizes your driving routes and reminds you of regular maintenance checks for your car.
GEICO
- • Best financial strength rating
- • Best mobile app
- • Roadside assistance included
GEICO is one of the biggest names on the market today, and offers excellent policies for college students across the US.
Financial Strength
GEICO’s great financial strength comes from its assets, as the company is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. GEICO owns more than $32 billion in various assets - you can rely on it to cover any liability.
GEICO is regarded highly by independent rating companies. It holds an A++ rating from AM Best and an AA+ from Standard & Poor.
It’s worth mentioning that only 5% of P&C (Property and casualty) companies manage to earn this rating from AM Best.
Discounts and Pricing
We were offered a $183 rate for the first month and $340 for the next five, including a good-grades discount, for an extra 15% saved.
You can further decrease your rate by attending a defensive driving course, but this discount will vary by state, ranging from 5% to 20% off.
How likely you are to find cheap insurance for your car will depend on the equipment it has installed, as well.
For example, having an airbag can save you up to 23% on medical payment or personal injury protection coverage. Anti-lock brakes can take up to 5% off your collision coverage, and anti-theft equipment up to 23% off comprehensive coverage.
Affiliate discounts include Berkshire Hathaway affiliates, some colleges, universities, fraternities, sororities, and many others, so be sure to check if GEICO has something in store for your university, at least.
Insurance Coverage
Decent insurance for a college student and their car, like the one provided by GEICO, covers bodily injury and property damage liability. It also includes uninsured motorist bodily injury and uninsured motorist property damage.
The deductible for comprehensive and collision coverage started at $1001 in our quote, otherwise requiring an increased monthly rate. GEICO also provides emergency road service to its customers, which is a nice touch.
Unique Offers
The GEICO DriveEasy app ensures you have your digital insurance ID with you at all times, and you can easily email or print it if you need to, as well.
Of course, just having handy access to your digital documents isn’t all that DriveEasy contributes to GEICO’s status as the best insurance for students.
Geolocation features help emergency roadside assistance and tows get to you anywhere, 24/7. You can also get fast car damage estimates, live chat with insurance agents for Apple users, and set up vehicle care reminders.
The GEICO Skill for Amazon Alexa covers a set of basic inquiries about your insurance bills that GEICO plans to expand, too.
The limited number of locations where you can apply for insurance in person compared to other companies would be a drawback if GEICO didn’t offset this with its online tools.
Liberty Mutual Insurance
- • Plenty of coverage options
- • Personalized pricing
- • Affiliation discounts
Liberty Mutual Insurance is an institution that has existed for more than a hundred years, surviving all the challenges of the 20th century. It’s now the third-largest US property and casualty insurer.
Financial Strength
Liberty Mutual is another Fortune 500 company on our list, so we can safely assume it has more than enough means to cover any obligation towards its customers.
It earned an A financial rating from AM Best, A2 from Moody’s, and another A from Standard & Poor.
Discounts and Pricing
After applying the parameters we set for this review, we received an offer with nine applied discounts. This saved us almost 50% in total on our monthly rate of $149.50.
We got a discount for good grades, using the RightTrack app, 12% off for making an online purchase, and several others. Just note that the Liberty Mutual good student discount requires a 3.0 GPA.
Liberty Mutual rewards environmentally conscious customers with an Alternative Energy discount for those driving hybrid or electric cars.
The cheapest offer is reserved for Liberty Mutual’s affiliates. Luckily, 14,000 organizations fit this description, so it’s more than likely your college is one of them.
Insurance Coverage
Our quote from Liberty Mutual includes bodily injury liability for $30,000 per person or $60,000 per accident and property damage liability of $25,000 per accident.
It also had uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage in those same amounts.
Comprehensive coverage, collision coverage, and personal injury protection increased the monthly rate, as they are not part of the basic plan. Liberty Mutual offers complete transparency with its policies.
Unique Offer
We mentioned that the RightTrack app was part of our discounted package. After installing and using it for 90 days on your iOS or Android device, an additional discount will be applied to your premium.
Depending on the tracked data, it can be anywhere between 5% and 30%, but it’s only available in select states - make sure yours is one of them.
Progressive
- • Good driver rewards
- • Accident forgiveness included
- • Great bundle deals
Founded in 1937, Progressive is another staple of the insurance industry. The company covers over 20 million drivers with their insurance policies, with many students among them as well.
Financial Strength
There is no need to worry about the financial infrastructure that protects Progressive’s policies, as most rating organizations grade it highly on their scales: An A+ from AM Best, and the highest marks from Standard and Poor and Moody’s Investors Services - an AA, and Aa, respectively.
Discounts and Pricing
Progressive is famous for its bundle discounts and, among other things, cheap car insurance for college students. However, for our trial quote, we haven’t bundled our insurance policy.
We were offered a monthly rate of $121.60 - a great price compared to other companies. Applying online earned us a 4% discount, on top of the good student discount for a 3.0 or higher GPA already in effect. We opted for the Snapshot program, too, as it can reduce the price by a further $145 on average per year.
Other reductions you can get include those for payment in full, multi-car insurance, and multi-policy discounts.
Insurance Coverage
Progressive offered us bodily injury and property damage liability, covering $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident for injuries, and $25,000 for physical property.
Unlike other plans, the default option didn’t include the underinsured or uninsured motorist coverage. However, this plan did include comprehensive and collision coverages with a $1000 deductible.
Unique Offer
Progressive’s Snapshot program rewards driving safely by monitoring your activity and offering a discount after 30 days. The amount will depend on the data recorded by the app, so if you want to have the most affordable car insurance, watch the road carefully.
The main behaviors it monitors are speeding, unsafe driving, hard braking, and using your phone while you drive for anything other than navigation.
Progressive’s prospective users will be happy to know that they might be eligible for accident forgiveness and that this benefit is automatically included with their policy. In effect, this means your premium won’t increase after a small accident (damage under $500) caused by your driving.
How We Evaluate Car Insurance Offers for College Students
Long commutes to lectures, internships, volunteering, or off-campus jobs are the primary reason for having a car in college. Of course, with a car comes insurance, so you have to find coverage suited to your needs.
Luckily, choosing one from over 6,000 car insurance carriers available in the US is a lot easier when you know what to look for in a car insurance policy.
Financial Strength
The financial strength of a company is the ratio between its current liabilities and assets. In our overview, we are going to analyze only those companies with superior or excellent ratings, since the provider’s financial stability is essential for reliable insurance payouts.
These ratings are estimates given by companies like AM Best Company, Moody’s Investor Services, Standard & Poor’s Insurance Ratings, Kroll Bond Rating Agency, and Fitch Ratings. Each of them has multiple criteria for determining financial strength.
We compared these ratings from several agencies to make sure all the insurance companies on our list can deliver on every student’s car insurance claims.
Discounts and Pricing
Insurance companies consider coverage for young drivers to be risky, based on the official statistics showing that drivers between 16 and 19 years of age are three times more likely to have a car accident than drivers age 20 and older. However, multiple providers offer certain discounts and benefits for students, and we did our best to find all money-saving opportunities with each insurer.
We used the same parameters at every insurance company we asked for a student driver insurance quote, to get a standardized price. Keep in mind that pricing depends on your state, car, applicable discounts, mileage, age, and other factors.
The prices we got were average monthly prices for a 20-year-old male student with a new car, who annually travels the national average mileage. Insurance for male students is more expensive than for female students, since women drivers are less prone to accidents on average.
Other ways college students can earn discounts is through good grades, responsible driving, and taking part in driving courses that focus on traffic safety.
Insurance Coverage
All states require coverage for bodily injury liability and property damage liability. Depending on the state where they attend university, students may need additional coverage for personal injury protection, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, collision, and comprehensive (OTC - other than collision) coverage.
The policies of the companies we reviewed comply with state regulations, and we made sure to only include those that will cover all your bases without costing an arm and leg.
Unique Offers
Companies have to think creatively and incorporate more into it than simple discounts. We paid extra attention to interesting features like mobile apps, courses, and bonuses.
FAQ
How much is the average car insurance for a college student?
Car insurance for college students is more expensive than it is for average drivers in the United States. Insurance companies consider the age group between 18 and 24 as a greater risk, which is reflected by costly premiums.
For example, a medium coverage policy will run an average driver around $1000 per year, while a 20-year-old college student could end up paying anywhere between $3,500 and $4,000 per year for the same thing.
Getting the cheapest offer depends on multiple factors, like the discounts you are eligible for.
Do college students get a discount on car insurance?
The most common discounts for college students, offered by almost every insurance company, are those for good grades, responsible driving, group memberships, students out of state, and others.
In our guide, we cover the most common ones you can find with the majority of car insurance companies. However, only applying for a quote will show you the full scope of the savings you can make.