Car Insurance Costs for 20-Year-Old Males and Females

The average cost of car insurance for a 20-year-old is $5,333. This is significantly less expensive than the average rates for a first-year college student (18 years old, $7,179), but it is still significantly more expensive than a young adult in their mid-20s (25 years old, $3,207). The higher rates reflect the fact that younger drivers are riskier than their older counterparts.

For 20-year-olds looking for the cheapest full coverage car insurance, we recommend starting with Erie, the company we discovered to offer the cheapest full coverage car insurance for 20-year-olds. However, different insurers will charge different rates based on your profile, so it's always a good idea to shop around.

How much is car insurance for 20-year-olds?

Erie Insurance, which is available in 12 states and Washington, D.C., had the lowest rates for 20-year-olds in our sample, at $2,513 per year. USAA, which is available to military personnel and their families, was the second most affordable option. Geico was the most affordable for 20-year-olds among widely available insurance companies, with average rates of $3,304 per year.

In this case, Allstate rates are particularly expensive, with premiums nearly twice as high as the next most expensive competitor, Progressive. If you're a young driver looking for low-cost car insurance, make sure to shop around and compare prices for comparable coverage.

At 20 years old — and all other ages — insurers calculate rates based on a variety of factors other than age. As a result, rates for any given age can vary greatly depending on the company, and young drivers can benefit from shopping around.

How does car insurance differ for 20-year-olds compared to other ages?

Car insurance for a 22-year-old costs $5,333 per year on average, or $444 per month.

Young drivers, especially those aged 25 and under, have particularly high car insurance rates. However, even within that age group, rates vary greatly by age. The average rate for a 21-year-old, who is only a year older, falls by nearly $900. In contrast, average rates for 20-year-olds are nearly $2,000 lower than for 18-year-olds.

As detailed in our methodology, these figures are for a full coverage policy for a 20-year-old, including liability insurance, comprehensive and collision coverage, and uninsured motorist coverage.

Among 20-year-olds, men pay more for car insurance than women

Young males typically pay more for car insurance than young females. Twenty-year-old men pay an average of $5,590 per year, which is 10% more than equivalent females ($5,076).

The difference in average rates between males and females tends to narrow with age, but dynamics around 20-year-olds are quite similar. In our sample, 19-year-old males pay 10% more than their female counterparts, and 21-year-old males pay 9% more.

Keep in mind that certain states have banned the use of gender as a pricing variable. If you live in:

• California
• Hawaii
• Massachusetts
• Michigan (in certain areas)
• Montana
• North Carolina
• Pennsylvania

... whether you're male or female, you'll pay the same rates for auto insurance as long as all other factors used in pricing remain constant.

Our choices for the best car insurance for 20-year-olds by state

Car insurance prices vary greatly from state to state, so we examined auto insurance premiums for 20-year-olds in the country's ten largest states (by population) to see how rates differ.

By far the most expensive state for car insurance for young drivers is Michigan. At more than $15,000, it more than doubles the rates in Florida, the second most expensive state.

North Carolina, on the other hand, has the lowest auto insurance rates for young drivers. The average rate for our 20-year-old was $1,996 per year, and it was the only state with rates below $3,000.

Even in less expensive states, young drivers may be able to save money by shopping around. Our hypothetical 20-year-old North Carolinian would pay...

• $733 with Geico or
• $4,538 with Allstate

We've included a list of the cheapest average insurance companies for 20-year-olds in our sample states to help you with your shopping. However, these are only averages for a specific driver; the best way to find a low rate for you is to shop around.

We did not include USAA in these recommendations, as its policies only serve current or former military members and their families. If USAA were included, it would offer the cheapest auto insurance for 20-year-olds in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.

The best way for 20-year-olds to find cheap car insurance

The quotes we've gathered are simply averages, and the truth is that each car insurance quote will be tailored to your specific driver profile. However, there are several tried-and-true ways for 20-year-olds to save money on auto insurance:

• Stay on your parents' policy
• Shop around between insurers
• Utilize insurer discounts
• Lower your coverage limits

We'll walk you through each of these steps so you can take advantage of all the savings available to you.

Stay on your parents' car insurance policy

If they allow it, keeping you on your parents' policy will almost certainly be the cheapest way to get auto insurance coverage. If your parents continue to keep you on their policy:

• Their policy will be more expensive because they will need to cover an additional driver...
• ... but the increase in their premium will almost certainly be less than the cost of your own policy.

Overall, if your parents are willing to name you on the policy, being covered under your family's policy will almost certainly cost less than two separate policies.

Shop around between insurers

As our data shows, the same 20-year-old could face a cost difference of hundreds — or even thousands — of dollars between insurers despite requesting similar coverage.

In California, for example, our sample 20-year-old driver paid an average of $2,708 with State Farm versus $5,885 with Farmers. That is a significant difference, but the difference between State Farm, the cheapest insurer, and AAA, the third cheapest, was hundreds of dollars.

Getting a quick car insurance quote is now easier than ever. If you're under the age of 20, look for quotes online while keeping coverage levels consistent across insurers. Begin with our recommendations for the cheapest in your state, but also broaden your search to include other insurers, as you never know who may offer the best deal.

Qualify for discounts

If you can persuade your insurance company that you are a lower risk, it will most likely charge you a lower rate. Many insurance companies provide discounts for the following:

• Excellent students (in other words, your grades are above a certain cutoff)
• Drivers who participate in a defensive driving course
• People with good credit scores

These characteristics, according to insurers, are associated with lower-risk driving. If you believe you qualify, be sure to discuss it with an insurance agent to see if you can save money on your quote.

Lower your coverage limits

We always recommend getting enough insurance to cover potential liabilities as well as damage to your own vehicle. That is why we recommend a full coverage policy, which covers the cost of damage or injury to others for which you are responsible, as well as the cost of damage to your own vehicle.

However, you may be purchasing too much coverage at some point, and you could save money on premiums by lowering your limits.

You should purchase liability coverage limits equal to your net worth to ensure that your wealth is protected in the event that you are found to be at fault for a serious and costly accident. Aside from that, you may be paying more in premiums for protection that you do not require.

If your car is still worth something, you should purchase comprehensive and collision coverage as part of a full coverage policy. If you pay hundreds of dollars more for comprehensive and collision coverage, but your car is only worth a few thousand dollars, you may end up paying more to protect it than it is worth.

All 20-year-olds purchasing their first car insurance should weigh the increased protection of higher limits and coverages against the increased cost of obtaining those protections.

Methodology

We gathered quotes from the country's ten most populous states and thousands of zip codes. We used 20-year-old males and females driving a 2015 Honda Civic EX as our sample drivers. Except for the factors discussed in this study, all factors affecting rates were kept consistent in order to make a fair comparison.

The following coverage levels were included in the full coverage policy, which are slightly more than what is required for any state's minimum coverage:

The analysis included 23 insurance companies, but insurer rates were only included in our list of average prices and recommendations if their policies were available in at least three of the ten states.

The insurance rate data used in LowCostInsurance analysis came from Quadrant Information Services. These rates were obtained publicly from insurer filings and should only be used for comparison purposes — your own quotes may differ.