Premium figures cited here are national averages from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) 2022/2023 Auto Insurance Database Report, reflecting the 2023 data year — the most recent full-year regulatory dataset available; modeled quote estimates are labeled with their provider and year at first mention.
TL;DR — Quick Verdict
- Collision coverage averages $463.71 per year nationally, while comprehensive runs far less — roughly $150–$190 per year (NAIC, 2023 data year).
- Collision costs about 2.5 to 3 times more than comprehensive because at-fault crash repairs are more frequent and more expensive than theft or weather claims.
- The average collision claim cost insurers $7,191 in 2022, up 17.6% from $6,113 in 2021 — a key reason collision premiums keep climbing.
- Lenders and lessors require both coverages; owners of paid-off cars can drop either once annual premium plus deductible nears 10% of the vehicle’s value.
- Recommendation: Keep comprehensive longer than collision — it’s cheap insurance against theft and hail, and comprehensive claims rarely raise your rate.
Two optional coverages sit on nearly every auto policy, and most drivers never see how differently they’re priced. Collision coverage carried a national average premium of $463.71 in 2023, according to the NAIC’s 2022/2023 Auto Insurance Database Report. Comprehensive — the coverage for theft, hail, flood, fire, and hitting a deer — costs a fraction of that. Yet roughly four out of five insured drivers buy both, often without questioning whether each one still earns its place on an aging vehicle.
This comparison breaks down what each coverage actually pays for, the real premium gap using NAIC regulatory data, how insurers price them differently, and the point at which dropping one saves money without exposing you to serious risk. You’ll see the math behind the 10% rule, why a State Farm or GEICO comprehensive claim behaves differently from a collision claim on your record, and which drivers should keep both. Every premium figure traces to a named primary source before it appears here.
What Each Coverage Pays For — and Where They Split
Collision and comprehensive both repair or replace your car, which sets them apart from liability. The dividing line is the cause of damage, and that line determines everything about how each is priced.
Collision coverage pays when your vehicle strikes another object — another car, a guardrail, a telephone pole — or rolls over, regardless of fault. Comprehensive coverage, sometimes labeled “other-than-collision” on your declarations page, handles almost everything else: theft, vandalism, fire, flood, falling branches, hail, and animal strikes. Hit a deer and it’s comprehensive; swerve to miss the deer and hit a tree, and it’s collision. That distinction routinely surprises drivers at claim time.
Each coverage carries its own deductible, commonly $500 or $1,000, and each pays only up to your car’s actual cash value (ACV) — the depreciated market value immediately before the loss, not what you paid or what you owe. That ACV ceiling is why both coverages lose value as a car ages, and why the gap insurance cost and when it is worth buying becomes relevant for financed vehicles where the loan exceeds the car’s worth. Understanding the split matters before you compare prices, because the two coverages protect against risks with very different frequencies.
The Cost Gap: Collision vs. Comprehensive by the Numbers
Regulatory data makes the price difference stark. The NAIC compiles average written premiums per insured vehicle from statistical agents nationwide, giving the cleanest apples-to-apples split between the two coverages.
Source: NAIC 2022/2023 Auto Insurance Database Report and Average Premium Supplement, 2023 data year. Comprehensive average shown as a range because point figures vary by reporting release; comprehensive average premiums rose 21.31% in 2023. Verify at content.naic.org.
Collision costs more for a structural reason: crashes happen often and repairs are expensive. The average collision claim cost insurers $7,191 in 2022, a 17.6% jump from $6,113 in 2021, per the NAIC. Comprehensive events — a stolen catalytic converter, a cracked windshield, a hailstorm — tend to cost less per claim and occur less predictably. Your own price will swing with vehicle value, location, deductible, and record; the average car insurance cost by state shows how much geography alone moves the number. Drivers weighing the full picture often compare this against full coverage vs liability-only cost trade-offs before deciding what to keep.
How Insurers Price Each Coverage: A Real-World Scenario
Consider a driver in a mid-size city insuring a five-year-old Honda Accord worth about $16,000, with $500 deductibles on both coverages. Watch how the two premiums respond to different risk inputs.
Raise that driver’s collision exposure — a long highway commute, a prior at-fault claim — and the collision premium climbs sharply, because the insurer is pricing the odds of another expensive crash repair. The comprehensive premium barely moves, since commuting doesn’t make hail or theft more likely. Now move the same car to a high-theft ZIP code: comprehensive rises noticeably while collision stays flat. The two coverages answer to almost entirely separate risk pools.
Vehicle value drives both. A newer luxury sedan can carry collision premiums two to three times those of an older midsize car, because repair parts and ACV payouts are higher. This is also where deductible choice impact on total insurance cost earns attention: moving from a $500 to a $1,000 deductible on both coverages typically trims the physical-damage portion of your premium, since you’re absorbing more of each claim. The same logic explains why electric vehicle vs gas car insurance costs often run higher on collision — EV repair and battery replacement costs sit above comparable gas models. Insurers aren’t guessing; they’re pricing measured claim frequency and severity for each peril separately.
Comprehensive vs. Collision: Which Should You Drop First?
When budgets tighten or a car ages, drivers ask which coverage to cut. The answer isn’t symmetrical — the two differ in both price and how a claim affects your record.
Collision is the pricier coverage and the one more likely to raise your rate, because collision claims are usually at-fault. Comprehensive claims — theft, weather, a deer strike — are typically not your fault, so insurers penalize them less at renewal. That asymmetry matters as much as the premium gap. Dropping collision on a low-value car saves the larger dollar amount ($463.71 nationally) while keeping cheap protection against theft and disasters. Before dropping either, it’s worth understanding filing a claim without raising your rate and how premium increases after an accident and duration play out, since a single collision claim can cost more over three years than the coverage saved.
Verdict
For a paid-off car worth under roughly $6,000, drop collision first — it’s the more expensive coverage and the more likely to raise your rate. Keep comprehensive longer: at a fraction of collision’s cost, it guards against theft, hail, and flood with little renewal penalty. Drop both only when combined annual premium plus deductible approaches 10% of the car’s actual cash value.
What Most People Get Wrong About These Coverages
Even careful drivers misjudge how comprehensive and collision work. Three mistakes cost the most money.
Mistake 1: Assuming “full coverage” is a single product. Full coverage simply bundles liability, collision, and comprehensive — there’s no separate policy. Drivers who don’t realize this overpay by keeping collision on a car barely worth its deductible. The fix: read your declarations page, price each coverage separately, and drop the ones the vehicle no longer justifies.
Mistake 2: Carrying identical deductibles without thinking. Many policies default both coverages to $500. Because collision claims are larger and more frequent, a higher collision deductible often saves more than a higher comprehensive one. The correct action is to set each deductible to the risk it covers rather than matching them by habit — a lever explored in verified strategies to lower car insurance premiums.
Mistake 3: Dropping comprehensive to save money. Because comprehensive is cheap and rarely raises rates, cutting it saves little while removing theft, fire, and flood protection. Drivers chasing savings should look first at bundling and shopping — the car insurance company claims ratings and prices vary enough that switching insurers usually beats dropping useful coverage.
Is Keeping Both Worth It? A Decision Framework
Whether both coverages earn their premium comes down to your car’s value, your loan status, and your cash reserves. The 10% rule offers a clean starting point, but it isn’t the whole story.
If your vehicle is financed or leased, the decision is made for you: lenders and lessors require both collision and comprehensive until the loan closes. Own the car outright, and the calculus shifts to value. The widely used benchmark: when the combined annual premium for collision and comprehensive plus your deductible reaches about 10% of the car’s actual cash value, the coverage returns less than it costs on average. On a $16,000 Accord, roughly $650 in combined premiums stays well under that threshold, so both coverages remain worthwhile. On a $4,000 commuter car, the same premiums breach it — a signal to drop collision, then reassess comprehensive.
Cash reserves matter too. If replacing your car out of pocket tomorrow would be manageable, self-insuring the physical-damage risk can make sense. If it would be financially painful, keep the coverage even slightly past the 10% line. Drivers rebuilding after a lapse — for instance those managing SR-22 insurance costs, requirements, and duration — often carry both coverages regardless, because a second loss during that period is harder to absorb. Run your own numbers against your car’s current ACV before renewal, and revisit the decision every year as depreciation moves the target.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is comprehensive or collision more expensive?
Collision is significantly more expensive. It averaged $463.71 per year nationally in 2023 per the NAIC, while comprehensive typically runs roughly $150–$190. Collision costs more because at-fault crash repairs happen frequently and cost a lot — the average collision claim reached $7,191 in 2022. Comprehensive covers less-frequent theft and weather events, keeping its premium low.
Can I buy comprehensive without collision?
Yes. Comprehensive and collision are separate optional coverages, and many drivers carry comprehensive alone on older paid-off cars. It’s a common cost-saving move: you keep cheap protection against theft, hail, and animal strikes — which rarely raise your rate — while dropping the pricier collision coverage once your car’s value no longer justifies it. Financed or leased vehicles, however, generally require both.
Does a comprehensive claim raise my rate like a collision claim?
Usually less. Comprehensive claims — theft, vandalism, weather, deer strikes — are typically not-at-fault events, so insurers penalize them more lightly at renewal. Collision claims are usually at-fault, so they’re more likely to raise your premium. Filing multiple comprehensive claims in a short window can still affect your renewal pricing or discount eligibility, according to Insurance.com’s analysis.
When should I drop collision and comprehensive coverage?
A common rule: when the combined annual premium for collision and comprehensive plus your deductible approaches or exceeds 10% of your car’s actual cash value, dropping the coverage may make financial sense. This applies only to cars you own outright — lenders and lessors require both. Drop collision first, since it’s the more expensive coverage, then reassess comprehensive separately.
How We Researched This Article
The premium figures in this comparison come primarily from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) 2022/2023 Auto Insurance Database Report and its accompanying Average Premium Supplement, which reflect the 2023 data year — the most recent complete regulatory dataset available at publication. The NAIC compiles written premium and exposure data from statistical agents including the Insurance Services Office (ISO), the American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS), and state departments of insurance in California and Texas, then calculates average premiums per insured vehicle by coverage type and by state. We used the report’s collision national average of $463.71, the District of Columbia and Iowa state extremes, and the reported average collision claim severity of $7,191 for 2022.
Because the NAIC releases comprehensive average premiums across multiple supplement editions and the point figure varies slightly between releases, we present comprehensive as a defensible range rather than a single number, and note the reported 21.31% comprehensive premium increase for 2023. Modeled full-coverage estimates referenced for context are drawn from published methodologies at the Insurance Information Institute, NerdWallet, and Insurance.com, and are labeled as modeled provider estimates rather than measured regulatory data.
The primary limitation is that national averages mask wide variation by state, vehicle, deductible, and driver record; NAIC averages also exclude policyholder classifications and vehicle characteristics. Figures here describe averages and modeled scenarios, not quotes for any specific driver. Research was last conducted in July 2026. All figures were verified against named primary sources before publication.