How the car you drive affects your insurance rate

The car you drive is one of the main rating factors in your premium, but it does not affect every coverage equally. It matters most for collision and comprehensive, which pay to fix or replace the car itself, so price, repair costs and theft risk dominate. It also nudges the liability and injury parts of your premium through the car's size, weight and the kind of drivers it attracts.

What insurers look at

The Insurance Information Institute lists the main vehicle factors as the car's cost, the likelihood of theft, the cost of repairs, its engine size and its overall safety record. Insurers also consider how much damage a model tends to do to other vehicles. The Texas Department of Insurance puts the practical result plainly: collision and comprehensive rates are highest for luxury, high-performance and sports cars, and higher for cars that cost more to repair.

Insurers turn these traits into a rating for each model, often called a vehicle symbol, based on the vehicle's price and the claims experience of that model across many policyholders. Two cars with similar sticker prices can carry different symbols if one is stolen more often or costs more to repair.

How each coverage responds to the car

What claims data shows

The Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) collects claims records from insurers representing more than 85% of the U.S. private passenger auto market and publishes comparisons by vehicle class and model. Its auto insurance research page, updated April 2026, shows several patterns for 2022-24 models:

• Size cuts both ways. Within each vehicle class, collision and property damage liability losses generally rise with vehicle size: larger vehicles cost more to repair or replace and do more damage to whatever they hit. Injury claims for people inside tend to fall as size increases.
• Price drives claim severity. Collision claims cost more on average for luxury vehicles and sports cars because of their high prices, although these classes have fewer claims, partly because they are often owned by households with more vehicles than drivers.
• Who drives it matters. Crash, injury and even theft claims are relatively rare for family-oriented station wagons and minivans. Losses under all coverages are high for large two-door cars, a category made up of Dodge Challenger variants, which HLDI says appeal to aggressive drivers as well as thieves.
• Theft is concentrated. Theft losses for large two-door and large four-door cars were more than five times the all-vehicle average, while station wagons, minivans and vans of all sizes were below average.

For scale, HLDI put the average collision loss for all 2022-24 passenger vehicles at $604 per insured vehicle year and the average comprehensive loss at $233. These are insurer loss costs, not premiums, but they show why a model that is twice as costly to repair can carry a noticeably higher collision rate. IIHS and HLDI insurance loss data: what it shows about cars explains how to read the model-by-model tables.

Trims, engines and options

Insurers usually rate the specific trim, not just the model name. Within one model line:

• Performance trims and bigger engines are often rated higher, reflecting both price and claims history.
• Advanced driver-assistance sensors can lower crash frequency but raise the cost of a bumper or windshield repair.
• Electric and hybrid versions can differ from gasoline versions because of price and repair costs; see why electric vehicles cost more to insure.
• Aftermarket parts you add, such as custom wheels or a stereo, are not automatically covered at full value and may need custom equipment coverage.

This is why a quote using the VIN or exact trim is more reliable than one for the model in general.

Age of the car

As a car ages, its actual cash value falls, and so does the most the insurer can pay under collision and comprehensive. Those coverages usually get cheaper, and at some point they may not be worth carrying; the Insurance Information Institute suggests that if your car is worth less than 10 times the annual premium for them, they may not be cost-effective. Liability and injury coverages do not shrink with the car's value, because they protect against harm you cause others. The Should I drop full coverage? calculator helps you test whether to keep collision and comprehensive on an older car.

A worked example

These numbers are hypothetical, for one driver with the same record, address and liability limits. They show how the car changes each line of the bill.

Liability barely moves, because it depends mostly on the driver. The difference sits almost entirely in collision and comprehensive, which track the car's value, repair cost and theft risk. If the sedan's owner dropped collision and comprehensive, the gap would widen further.

How the car interacts with your other rating factors

The car is one factor among many. Your driving record, location, annual mileage, age and, in most states, credit-based insurance score all affect the price, and they multiply rather than add: a high-rated car costs more to insure for a young driver in a dense city than for an experienced driver in a rural area. how car insurance rates are calculated covers the full formula. If you are choosing a car, what makes a car cheap to insure turns these patterns into a shortlist checklist, and vehicle safety ratings and insurance costs explains how crash ratings fit in.

Key takeaways

• The car mostly affects collision and comprehensive, which depend on its price, repair costs and theft risk.
• Size and weight raise property damage losses but lower injury claims for the people inside.
• HLDI data shows high claim costs for luxury and sports cars and low losses for minivans and wagons.
• Insurers rate the specific trim, so quote the exact version or VIN you plan to buy.
• As a car ages, collision and comprehensive get cheaper, but liability does not.