What does full coverage car insurance include?
No insurer sells a product officially named full coverage. The phrase describes a package, and the core of that package is three coverages. Liability pays for injuries and property damage you cause to other people. Collision pays for damage to your own car after it hits another vehicle or an object. Comprehensive pays for damage to your car from causes other than a crash, such as theft, fire, flood, vandalism, or hail.
Most quotes labeled full coverage also include whatever your state requires beyond liability. Many states require medical payments or personal injury protection, which reimburses medical expenses for you and your passengers, and many require uninsured motorist coverage, which pays when a driver without insurance or a hit-and-run driver causes the crash.
| Coverage | What it pays for | Who usually requires it |
|---|---|---|
| Bodily injury liability | Injuries or deaths you cause to others | Required in nearly every state |
| Property damage liability | Damage you cause to other vehicles or property | Required in nearly every state |
| Collision | Damage to your car from hitting a vehicle or object | Optional by law, often required by lenders |
| Comprehensive | Theft and non-crash damage like fire, flood, hail | Optional by law, often required by lenders |
| PIP or medical payments | Medical costs for you and your passengers | Required in many states |
| Uninsured motorist | Your losses when an uninsured or hit-and-run driver is at fault | Required in many states |
Because the label has no fixed definition, two quotes that both say full coverage can contain different limits, deductibles, and add-ons. Read the coverage list on the declarations page, not the label.
What does full coverage not pay for?
Full coverage is broad, but it is not complete. Several common costs sit outside it.
- Mechanical failure and wear: collision coverage does not reimburse mechanical failure or normal wear and tear. It does cover damage from potholes or from rolling the car.
- The gap on a new or financed car: collision and comprehensive pay the market value of the car, not what you paid or still owe. If the car is totaled while the loan balance is higher, gap insurance is the coverage that pays the difference. For leased cars, gap coverage is usually built into the lease payments.
- Commercial driving: a personal auto policy covers personal use such as commuting and errands. It does not cover business use such as food or package delivery unless you add coverage for it.
- Losses above your limits: liability pays only up to the limits you chose. A serious crash can produce costs above a low limit, and the difference falls on you.
- Your deductible: every collision or comprehensive claim is reduced by the deductible you selected.
Add-ons such as rental reimbursement, roadside assistance, and glass coverage are sold separately by many insurers. Check whether a quote includes them before you compare prices.
How much does full coverage car insurance cost?
For a benchmark, the Insurance Information Institute cites the AAA Your Driving Costs study: the average full-coverage insurance cost for all vehicles was $2,098 in 2026. That figure assumes a driver under 65 with more than six years of experience, no accidents, a suburban or urban address, a new vehicle driven 15,000 miles a year, and a policy with a $500 deductible for collision and comprehensive claims.
A second number is often quoted from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. The NAIC average auto insurance expenditure was $1,282 in 2023, up 14.0 percent from $1,127 in 2022. That figure is lower because it averages all insured vehicles, including those that carry liability only and skip collision or comprehensive.
Your own price can land far from either figure. Insurers price by state, vehicle, driving record, age, deductible, and limits, and the two benchmarks use different methods, so do not compare one against the other. The only reliable way to know your cost is to request quotes with the same coverage details from several insurers.
Is full coverage required by law?
No state law requires the full package. Nearly every state requires bodily injury and property damage liability, and many add personal injury protection or uninsured motorist coverage. The Insurance Information Institute lists collision and comprehensive as optional coverages.
The requirement usually comes from the lender. The NAIC notes that collision insurance may be required by your lending institution or lessor, and the Insurance Information Institute says dealers or lenders will likely require collision and comprehensive on a leased or financed car. Your loan or lease contract states exactly what you must carry, so read it before changing coverage.
Once the car is paid off, the choice is yours. That is the point at which the cost comparison in the next section matters most.
When is full coverage worth keeping?
Full coverage makes sense when losing the car would hurt your finances. Most insured drivers keep at least part of it: based on a Triple-I analysis of 2023 NAIC data, 80 percent of insured drivers buy comprehensive and 77 percent buy collision.
Claim sizes show what the coverage protects against. In 2024 the average collision claim was $5,489 and the average comprehensive claim was $2,306, according to ISO data published by the Insurance Information Institute. If a bill of that size would be hard to pay from savings, collision and comprehensive are doing real work.
For older cars, the Insurance Information Institute offers a rule of thumb: if the car is worth less than 10 times the premium, buying the coverage may not be cost effective. Here is how the arithmetic works with example numbers. Say collision and comprehensive together add $500 a year. Ten times that is $5,000. If your car is worth $4,000, it falls below the line and dropping those coverages deserves a look. If it is worth $12,000, keeping them likely makes more sense.
Also ask whether you could replace the car with cash if it were stolen tomorrow. If not, keep the coverage even on an older car.
How do deductibles change the price of full coverage?
The deductible is the amount you pay on a collision or comprehensive claim before the insurer pays the rest. A higher deductible lowers the premium. The Insurance Information Institute gives this example: raising the deductible from $200 to $500 could reduce collision and comprehensive cost by 15 to 30 percent, and going to a $1,000 deductible can save 40 percent or more.
The tradeoff is cash on hand. Pick a deductible you could pay the same week a claim happens. A lower premium does not help if a claim leaves you unable to fund the repair share.
How do you compare full coverage quotes fairly?
Because full coverage has no standard definition, line up the details yourself before comparing prices.
- Use the same liability limits on every quote, written as three numbers for bodily injury per person, per accident, and property damage.
- Use the same collision and comprehensive deductibles.
- Note which add-ons are included, such as rental, roadside, or gap coverage.
- Confirm each quote meets your state minimums and your lender requirements.
- Get at least three quotes, as the Insurance Information Institute recommends.
Your state insurance department may also publish price comparisons and complaint information for insurers licensed in your state. Price is one factor. How an insurer handles claims matters just as much, and complaint data from regulators is a good place to check that.