Full-coverage car insurance premiums are climbing again after a rare year of relief, and the increase is landing unevenly across the country. Insurify, an online insurance marketplace, found that average full-coverage rates rose in 27 states during the first half of 2026, reversing a nationwide 6% decline logged in 2025. Connecticut absorbed the steepest increase of any state, with full-coverage premiums running 10% higher, an extra $251 a year, than six months earlier. The company now projects that rate increases will spread to 32 states by the end of the year.
For a household working around a fixed paycheck or a Social Security check, a jump of that size lands in the same place as a higher grocery bill or a bigger heating bill: it shows up on the renewal notice with little advance warning.
Connecticut’s Premiums Already Jumped 10% in Six Months
Connecticut posted the largest six-month increase in the country, according to Insurify’s 2026 Mid-Year Auto Insurance Report, which pulled from roughly 250 million rates in the company’s database. Full-coverage premiums in the state rose 10% compared with six months earlier, an increase of $251 a year for the average driver carrying full coverage.
That was the largest dollar-and-percentage jump measured anywhere in the country during the first half of the year, and it had already taken effect by the time Insurify published its report — it is not a forecast.
Connecticut auto insurers file their proposed rate changes with the state’s own Insurance Department, which reviews them for actuarial soundness before allowing many of them to take effect. The department’s 2025 rate-review report says personal auto rates rose an average of 4.1% statewide that year, a separate, department-tracked number from Insurify’s quoted-rate data, and it ties the pressure to accident frequency that has deteriorated since 2020.
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Insurify Projects 32 States Will Pay More by Year’s End
Insurify’s report is explicit that its full-year numbers are a projection, not a completed count. Twenty-seven states saw rates rise in the first half of 2026, compared with nine states in the second half of 2025, and the company forecasts that number will grow to 32 states by the time the year closes.
The average full-coverage policy nationwide costs $2,237 a year as of mid-2026, up 1% since the end of 2025. Insurify projects that average will climb further to $2,242 by the end of the year, also a 1% year-over-year increase.
Among the states Insurify expects to see the largest additional increases in the second half are the same two that led the country in the first half: Connecticut, projected up another 4%, and West Virginia, projected up 3%. Those are forecasts built on current rate-filing trends, layered on top of the increases already measured, not numbers that have taken effect yet.
That reversal follows an unusual dip. Premiums spiked to record highs two years ago as insurers absorbed a surge of costly claims that followed the pandemic. Once those higher premiums helped insurers stabilize financially, many began competing harder for new customers by cutting rates through 2025, and the average driver paid about $140 less for full coverage by the end of that year than 12 months earlier. Insurify’s report describes that stretch of relief as short-lived, with rates turning higher again in 2026.
Kentucky, West Virginia and Illinois Also Posted Steep Increases
Connecticut was not alone. Kentucky’s full-coverage premiums rose 6% in the first half of 2026, the second-largest increase in the country. West Virginia followed at 5%, and Illinois rose 4%. Those increases, like Connecticut’s, were already measured in Insurify’s data, not projected.
Where Full-Coverage Insurance Already Costs the Most
Even before the projected second-half increases, seven states and Washington, D.C. were already paying more than $3,000 a year for full coverage. Washington, D.C. had the highest average premium in the country at $3,880 a year, followed by Maryland at $3,646, Rhode Island at $3,611, Michigan at $3,229 and Georgia at $3,109.
According to Repairer Driven News, which reviewed the Insurify data, many of the most expensive states cluster in the Northeast, where dense urban centers produce more traffic, more accidents and costlier claims. Even so, three of the priciest states, Washington, D.C., New York and New Jersey, saw premiums fall at least 5% in the first half of 2026 even as rates rose elsewhere.
Rising Claim and Repair Costs Are Driving the Increases
Insurify ties the renewed increases to costs that have been building for years. The cost of bodily injury claims, the most expensive category for insurers, rose 36% nationally between 2020 and 2024, while collision claim costs rose 42% over the same period. Auto maintenance and repair costs have risen 45% over the past five years, roughly double the overall rate of inflation, adding to what insurers pay out after a crash.
Gas prices have also climbed, from roughly $3 a gallon to around $4, adding another pressure point for households that were counting on 2025’s rate relief to continue.
A Handful of States Are Still Seeing Rates Fall
The increases are not universal. New Mexico, Massachusetts, Florida, Arkansas, South Dakota, Nebraska and Oklahoma all saw full-coverage premiums fall between 2% and 5% in the first half of 2026. Looking ahead, Insurify projects the largest second-half decreases, in the range of 1% to 3%, in New Mexico, Arkansas, Minnesota, Colorado, Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Iowa and New Hampshire.
Those projected declines, like the projected increases in Connecticut and the 31 other states expected to see higher rates, have not yet taken effect. Insurify’s report describes them as a forecast built on current rate-filing trends across its database, not a completed year-end tally, and the company has said it will publish updated figures once 2026 closes.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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