How Much Should Car Insurance Cost for a Car You're Not Currently Driving?

What's Behind This Number

The anchor dataset is the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Auto Insurance Database, which reported a national combined average premium of $1,438 per issued vehicle in 2023, up 14.42% from 2022, and an average expense of $1,281 per insured vehicle per year in 2023. NAIC also splits the bill by coverage, averaged over 2015 to 2019: $160 a year for comprehensive, $358 for collision and $605 for liability. For a parked car those three lines are the whole story, because what you keep is the biggest single lever on price.

What actually produces your figure:

• Which coverages you keep. Storage or parked-car coverage is comprehensive-only: no liability, no collision, no uninsured motorist (Insurance.com). The Zebra puts it at about $20 per month per car; Insurance.com's rate data puts comprehensive at $451 a year based on a $500 deductible, and Policygenius describes comprehensive as the cheapest part of a car insurance policy.
• Whether the car stays registered. There is no law requiring coverage on a vehicle that is not driven on public roads (Experian), but most states require insurance on all registered vehicles, and in most you must turn in the plates or cancel the registration to go comprehensive-only (Insurance.com).
• The vehicle and where it sits. Comprehensive responds to theft, fire, hail, falling objects and flood, so the car's value, make, model and year matter — and the storage address is the garaging address used for territory rating.
• Credit-based insurance score, where state law permits it. Several states ban or sharply restrict its use in rating; where it is allowed, your credit tier applies to a comprehensive-only policy as it does to full coverage.
• Insurer and underwriting company. Not every carrier files a storage or lay-up form, and two companies under the same brand can file different rates in the same state.

Market-wide losses sit underneath all of it. NAIC reported that average incurred loss per collision claim rose 17.6%, from $6,113 in 2021 to $7,191 in 2022, and that liability premiums grew 19% from 2019 to 2023 while the number of insured vehicles grew 5.5%. Everything below is a national average for the period named — not a quote, and not what an insurer will bind for your car.

Average Rates by Category

Each row names the coverage tier and the dataset and period it comes from, exactly as that source reported it.

The spread between sources is not an error. Each dataset uses different coverage limits, deductibles, vehicle mixes and driver profiles. The Bankrate series shows how fast the full-coverage average moved: a 26% rise to $2,543 by February 2024 against the same month a year earlier, then a settling to $2,388 by October 2024.

What Pushes You Above or Below Average

• Dropping liability. The largest single reduction on a parked car. NAIC's 2015–2019 averages put liability at $605 a year against $160 for comprehensive, so comprehensive-only removes the biggest component. The trade-off: nobody can legally drive the car, and uninsured motorist coverage goes with it (Insurance.com).
• Dropping collision. Worth $358 a year on NAIC's 2015–2019 average. A stored car isn't in traffic, but collision is also what responds if the car is struck where it sits — check your insurer's filed language before assuming comprehensive alone covers that.
• Comprehensive deductible. Insurance.com's $451 annual comprehensive figure assumes a $500 deductible; a higher deductible tier lowers the premium and raises your out-of-pocket on a theft, fire or hail claim by the difference.
• Garaging ZIP code and storage conditions. Territory rating is built into every comprehensive rate. A locked indoor space in a low-theft, low-hail territory prices below the same car on the street in a high-loss territory.
• Vehicle value and model. Comprehensive pays actual cash value less deductible, so a high-value or frequently stolen model rates above average even when it never moves.
• A lapse in coverage. Going bare rather than switching to comprehensive-only is the fastest route above average. New York charges a $750 civil penalty to restore a license revoked for an insurance lapse, and where a registration suspension runs more than 90 days the owner must surrender registration and plates, with a $50 license suspension termination fee to reinstate. Pennsylvania suspends the registration for three months plus a restoration fee if you cancel liability without surrendering the plate, unless the lapse was 30 days or less and you prove the vehicle wasn't operated.
• Credit tier, where permitted. Several states restrict or prohibit credit-based insurance scoring outright, so this factor may not apply to you at all.
• Market-wide loss trends. NAIC recorded a 14.42% increase in the combined average premium from 2022 to 2023. Part of a renewal increase is not about you.

How to Lower Your Rate Without Cutting Coverage

1. Ask your insurer by name for storage or parked-car coverage on that vehicle only. It is comprehensive-only — no liability, collision or uninsured motorist (Insurance.com) — and The Zebra puts it at about $20 per month per car. Get in writing which perils the filed form covers.
2. Surrender the plates or cancel the registration first if your state requires it. In Pennsylvania, cancelling liability without surrendering the plate triggers a three-month registration suspension plus a restoration fee, with a $500 optional civil penalty available in lieu of serving the suspension. Trade-off: the car cannot be driven until you re-register and re-add liability.
3. Raise the comprehensive deductible above the $500 level that Insurance.com's $451 annual comprehensive figure assumes. The saving is real, but you carry more of any theft, fire or hail loss yourself. Only do it if you can write that cheque the day it happens.
4. Keep the stored car insured rather than letting it go bare. Continuous coverage avoids lapse penalties such as New York's $750 civil penalty to restore a revoked license.
5. Ask whether the carrier will rate the stored car as pleasure-use or low-mileage, and whether its usage-based telematics program can apply to it. Ask for the program's actual name and whether enrolment can ever raise the rate.
6. Confirm the lienholder's requirements before cutting anything. On a financed or leased car the lender normally requires comprehensive and collision, so the $358 a year collision component in NAIC's 2015–2019 averages is not optional.
7. Compare three to five quotes at every renewal, and at least once every 12 months, on identical terms. Match the comprehensive deductible, the garaging address and whether liability is included. A quote is an estimate; the bound premium can differ after underwriting.
8. Re-price before the car returns to the road, not after. Fresh quotes tell you whether your full-coverage total sits above or below the $2,388 national full-coverage average reported for October 2024 (Bankrate, via CNBC Select).