Car Insurance for Teens and Young Drivers: Costs by Age

Car insurance costs the most at 16 and drops steadily through your early 20s. In our model, a 16-year-old with a full-coverage policy of their own is estimated at about $900 a month, four times the estimate for the same coverage at 35, and by 25 the gap shrinks to about 18%. Adding a teen to a parent's policy usually costs less than a separate policy, though studies disagree on how much less.

How much does car insurance cost for teens and young drivers?

The table shows our calculator's estimate for one driver on their own policy at typical U.S. prices. Everything except age matches our example driver: clean record, good credit, a 3- to 5-year-old mid-size sedan, 12,000 miles a year, a suburban address, 100/300/100 liability with matching uninsured motorist coverage, and comprehensive and collision with $500 deductibles, with no discounts.

These are midpoints. The calculator shows a range because insurers price the same young driver very differently: for the 16-year-old above, it runs from about $720 to $1,080 a month. Your state, car, record and discounts move the number further.

Try your own numbers below. Set the driver's age, car and coverage, then switch discounts on and off to see what changes.

Should you add a teen to your policy or buy a separate one?

A teen can usually be added to a parent's policy or insured on a policy of their own. Published studies agree that adding the teen tends to cost less, but they disagree on how much:

Our calculator uses the Insurance.com ratio: a teen's own policy costs about 2.2 times what adding the same teen to a parent's policy adds. For the example 16-year-old, that works out to roughly $413 a month added to a parent's bill, compared with $900 a month alone. The calculator shows both figures for drivers under 21 (except in Hawaii, where age isn't used).

A few tradeoffs to weigh before you decide:

• A ticket or at-fault accident by the teen can raise the whole household's premium at renewal.
• If the teen will own the car or live at another address, ask the insurer whether they can stay on your policy.
• In Texas, an insurer can't make you exclude a family member just because they reached driving age (Texas rules).

Why age matters, and where it doesn't

Insurers price young drivers on age and inexperience together. Most insurers treat you as a new driver for three to nine years after you're first licensed, according to CarInsurance.com (2026), so someone licensed at 22 may still count as a new driver at 25.

Does gender affect car insurance for young drivers?

In Insurance.com's 2026 rates-by-age data, a 16-year-old's own full-coverage policy averaged $10,928 a year for boys and $9,846 for girls nationally. The gap narrows with age: $3,091 versus $2,997 at 25, and nearly even by 30.

California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania don't allow insurers to price by gender, and our calculator ignores it there. Montana relaxed its unisex rule in 2021, so insurers there have been allowed to use sex-based pricing since 2022 (Montana rules).

States that limit pricing by age

• Hawaii bars rating based on age, sex, length of driving experience or marital status. In our model, a 20-year-old in Hawaii gets the same estimate as a 35-year-old there, about $2,028 a year for the example driver (Hawaii rules).
• North Carolina has barred age- and sex-based rating plans since 1975. New drivers pay an inexperienced-operator surcharge based on years licensed instead. For drivers first licensed on or after July 1, 2025, it can last until they have eight years of experience rather than three, with a safe-driver discount possible after three clean years (North Carolina rules).
• California requires rates to rest mainly on driving record, miles driven and years of driving experience, in that order. Drivers licensed at least three years in a row with no more than one point qualify as Good Drivers and must get rates at least 20% lower (California rules).
• Massachusetts doesn't let insurers group drivers by age, apart from a lower rate for qualifying drivers 65 and older (Massachusetts rules).

In California, North Carolina and Massachusetts, the calculator treats an age under 25 as a stand-in for years licensed, and from 25 on, age no longer changes the estimate there. A note under the age setting explains this when you pick one of those states.

How young drivers can pay less

Age is out of your control, but several other parts of the price aren't. The steps below matter most for young drivers, and our guide on how to lower car insurance covers the rest.

Ask about a good-student discount

Insurers that offer one typically want at least a B average (about a 3.0 GPA), full-time enrollment and a driver under 25, and some offer up to 25% off, according to Insurify's 2026 guide. Our model applies about 11%: for the example 20-year-old, the estimate falls from $5,400 to $4,806 a year. Georgia requires insurers to offer good-student discounts (Georgia rules).

Try a safe-driving app

Telematics programs score habits like braking, speed and time of day through an app or plug-in device. Insurance.com's October 2026 analysis put the average telematics discount at 7%, and our model uses about 10%. Some programs can also raise the price after risky driving, so read the terms first.

Take a driving course

Insurify (2026) puts typical defensive-driving discounts at about 10%, within a 5% to 20% range, usually for up to three years. Ask whether a driver's ed or defensive-driving course counts before you sign up.

Choose the car with insurance in mind

In our model, the car changes the estimate by the same percentage at any age. Compared with a mid-size sedan, a sports car raises it about 36% and a luxury car about 33%, while an SUV or minivan lowers it 7% to 9%. A 10- to 14-year-old car comes in about 24% below one that's 3 to 5 years old, and on an older car you can weigh whether collision coverage still makes sense (full coverage vs. liability).

Raise the deductible, if you have the cash

For an example 22-year-old, moving from a $500 to a $1,000 deductible lowers our estimate from $4,023 to $3,590 a year, and a $2,000 deductible brings it to $3,121. Only choose a deductible you could pay right after a claim (how deductibles work).

Keep the record clean

For our example driver, one speeding ticket raises the estimate about 28% and one at-fault accident about 50%. A young driver's estimate starts higher, so the same surcharge usually adds more dollars than it would at 35 (insurance after an accident, ticket or DUI).

Does car insurance go down at 25?

Yes, but 25 isn't a cliff. In our model, the example driver's estimate falls from $4,023 a year at 22 to $3,186 at 25, then keeps easing to $2,835 at 30 and $2,700 at 35. Published data follows the same gradual path: in Insurance.com's 2026 rates-by-age table, full coverage at 25 cost about 18% more than the average at ages 35, 40 and 45, and at 30 about 5% more.

Two more things to know. Insurers generally reprice at renewal rather than on your birthday. And your record can matter more than your age: in our model, one at-fault accident adds 50%, more than the whole drop from 22 to 25.

Car insurance for college students

• Grades: the good-student discount usually covers full-time college students under 25, too.
• School away from the car: if the student leaves the car at home during the school year, ask the insurer how that changes the price.
• Fewer miles: Insurance.com's October 2026 low-mileage guide found average discounts of 7% to 20% at large insurers for drivers under 7,500 miles a year.
• Where the car is kept: in our model, a city address adds about 22% and a rural one takes off about 15% compared with a suburb, so tell the insurer if the car moves to campus.

Common questions

How much is car insurance for a 16-year-old?

On a full-coverage policy of their own, our model estimates about $900 a month for the example driver, within a range of $720 to $1,080. Added to a parent's policy, it usually costs much less: Insurance.com's 2026 analysis found an average of $3,859 a year to add a teen.

How much is car insurance for an 18-year-old?

Our model puts an 18-year-old's own full-coverage policy at about $7,803 a year, or $650 a month, for the example driver. Insurance.com's 2026 national averages were $7,047 for women and $7,946 for men.

Is it cheaper to add a teen to a parent's policy?

On average, yes, in both studies above that priced the two options. The gap varies widely from one insurer to another, so compare both options before you decide.

Do young drivers need full coverage?

State law requires liability coverage (plus PIP or uninsured motorist coverage in some states), not comprehensive and collision (minimums by state). Lenders usually require comprehensive and collision on a financed or leased car. On an older car you own outright, it comes down to the car's value and your savings.