A driver shopping for full-coverage car insurance this fall is looking at a national average that has barely moved since spring, but that average hides an enormous range from state to state. Insurify, a private online insurance marketplace that tracks the rates its users are quoted, reported on September 8 that full-coverage premiums held steady at $187 a month through August, with Maryland’s average running to $303 a month and New Hampshire’s down at $84. The gap between the two states is more than a factor of three.
Insurify’s Read on Full-Coverage Premiums
Insurify compiles its rate analysis from the auto insurance quotes its own users receive when comparison-shopping through the site, then publishes a monthly average across those quotes. According to its September 2026 rate analysis, the national average for full-coverage insurance, meaning a policy that pairs liability coverage with collision and comprehensive protection, held at $187 a month through August, while liability-only coverage averaged $98 a month over the same period. Because the figures come from a private marketplace’s own quote data rather than a state regulator’s rate filings or a government survey, they describe what Insurify’s users were quoted, not a mandated or official average. Insurify publishes an updated version of this analysis roughly monthly, drawing on a large enough pool of quotes across its platform to produce a state-by-state comparison, though the exact mix of drivers requesting quotes in any given month can shift the average somewhat from one release to the next.
Relief that waits to be asked for: A car insurance bill that varies this much by state is a reminder that plenty of other recurring home costs, including property taxes and utility bills, also come with their own state-by-state relief programs that are never applied automatically. See the property-tax freeze rules in The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit.
Maryland Tops the List at $303 a Month
Maryland’s $303 average full-coverage premium was the highest Insurify recorded among the states in its September analysis, followed closely by Rhode Island at $299, Delaware at $262, Nevada at $259 and New Jersey at $256. Insurify’s own commentary ties much of that regional cost to factors like dense traffic, higher rates of litigation over accident claims and, in some coastal states, greater exposure to severe weather that drives up vehicle damage claims. Every one of those states sits well above the $187 national figure Insurify reported for the same period. States in this upper tier tend to share crowded urban corridors, where the odds of a collision on any given commute run higher than on rural roads, and insurers price that added claims risk directly into the premiums quoted to drivers in those areas.
New Hampshire and the Cheapest States
New Hampshire’s $84 average sat at the opposite end of Insurify’s list, trailed by Wyoming at $94, Alaska at $98, Idaho at $107 and Iowa at $111. New Hampshire is one of a small number of states that does not require drivers to carry liability insurance at all, though most drivers there still buy coverage, and its lower population density and lighter traffic are among the factors Insurify’s analysis points to for the state’s comparatively low averages. A driver moving between a state like Maryland and a state like New Hampshire would see a premium difference of more than $200 a month for comparable full coverage, based on Insurify’s figures alone. That gap has less to do with a driver’s own record than with where the policy is written, since state law, court systems and the density of vehicles on the road all vary enough to move a state’s average up or down well before any individual driver’s history enters the calculation.
A Government Check on the Trend
Insurify’s numbers are quote data from one private marketplace, not a government price index, so it is worth comparing them against a federal measure of the same category. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in its August 2026 Consumer Price Index report, published September 11, found that its motor vehicle insurance index actually fell 0.8 percent for the month, a separate measure that tracks price changes for insurance premiums already being paid by existing policyholders nationwide rather than new quotes offered to shoppers. The two measures are not built the same way and will not always move together, but the Bureau’s next inflation report, due October 14, will offer the next official check on where insurance costs are heading. A national index that eases even slightly while a private marketplace reports steep state-level ranges is not necessarily a contradiction; the Bureau’s figure blends every state and every driver into one monthly number, which can mask the kind of Maryland-versus-New-Hampshire gap Insurify’s state-by-state data lays out directly.
What “Full Coverage” Actually Buys
The $103 gap between Insurify’s full-coverage and liability-only averages reflects what each policy type actually covers. Liability-only insurance, the $98-a-month figure in Insurify’s analysis, pays for damage a driver causes to someone else’s car or property, and it is the minimum most states require. Full coverage adds collision insurance, which pays to repair a driver’s own car after an accident, and comprehensive insurance, which covers damage from causes like theft, weather or hitting an animal. Lenders financing a car generally require the fuller policy until the loan is paid off, which is part of why the $187 full-coverage average, and the wide state-by-state range around it, matters most to drivers who are still making car payments.
Car Insurance Rates That Vary by State, and So Does Property-Tax Relief
A full-coverage premium that varies so sharply by state of residence is a reminder that plenty of other recurring costs on a household budget follow the same pattern, rising or falling based on where a policyholder happens to live rather than any choice made behind the wheel. Property-tax relief works the same way, varying by state and requiring its own paperwork to claim.
The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit walks through the circuit-breaker credit that includes renters and separate help with heating, cooling and home-repair costs, the kind of recurring expenses that sit alongside a car insurance bill on a monthly budget.
Compare the five kinds of property-tax relief in The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Every rate figure is linked to the source that reported it.
