Cheapest car insurance in California 2025

As car insurance and the cost of living continue to rise in California, it’s more important than ever to seek out the cheapest car insurance — without exposing your finances to big losses after an accident.

Collecting insurance quotes from multiple companies is one of the best ways to find the cheapest car insurance rates. To support your comparison shopping, Yahoo Finance has compiled the cheapest California car insurance rates using data from Trellis, an insurance technology company that operates the auto insurance marketplace Savvy.

Learn more: How does car insurance work? The basics explained.

In this article:

Read on for a breakdown of which companies offer the cheapest rates in California for different coverage levels and driver qualifications. Know that your rates may differ from the amounts shown. When you request quotes, insurance companies provide personalized rates that reflect your risk level. You can use the average rates below to evaluate your quotes and determine if they seem competitive or overpriced.

Full coverage car insurance in California goes beyond the state’s minimum liability requirements to include comprehensive insurance and collision coverage. Some California drivers will also optionally add uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage and other optional upgrades like gap insurance and rental car reimbursement.

Learn more: What is full coverage car insurance?

The car insurance companies below offer some of the cheapest car insurance rates for full coverage in California.

California drivers must carry 30/60/15 liability insurance. This means $30,000 in bodily injury liability per person, $60,000 in bodily injury liability per accident, and $15,000 in property damage liability. Liability insurance covers you for accidents you cause and pays for someone else’s injury and property damage expenses.

Liability-only insurance costs less than full coverage because it provides fewer protections. The insurers below offer some of the cheapest car insurance rates for liability-only coverage in California.

Learn more: What is liability insurance, and how much do you need?

Teen drivers are typically more expensive to insure because they have the highest accident risk across all age groups, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Drivers aged 16 to 19 are three times more likely than older drivers to have a fatal crash. Car insurance companies address the increased risk by charging higher rates for teen drivers.

The car insurance companies in the table below offer some of the cheapest full coverage car insurance rates for teen drivers in California.

Learn more: How to get the most affordable car insurance for your teen driver

Older drivers may see their car insurance rates decline after age 50 and before 75. Still, some companies will charge more than others, so it pays to find the lowest rates. Cheaper car insurance may be particularly important for California seniors transitioning to a fixed retirement budget.

The companies below have the cheapest full coverage car insurance for senior drivers in California.

Learn more: Car insurance for seniors: How to get the best rates

Your driving record can be a major factor in your car insurance rates. Insurance companies generally prefer driving records with no accidents or tickets in at least the last three years. A “clean record” indicates you are a lower-risk driver and may qualify you for cheaper rates.

These auto insurers offer some of the cheapest full coverage car insurance rates for good drivers in California.

Causing just one accident can lead to higher car insurance rates in California. Insurance companies have their own frameworks for assessing single at-fault accidents, and some are more lenient on rate increases than others.

The companies below have some of the lowest average full-coverage insurance rates for California drivers with one at-fault accident on their record.

Learn more: How much does car insurance increase after an accident?

A single speeding ticket may be less severe than an at-fault accident, but it can still brand you as a higher-risk driver for insurance companies. The table below identifies the cheapest rates insurance companies offer for California drivers with a single speeding ticket.

Learn more: How does a speeding ticket impact your car insurance?

If you have limited income and meet certain eligibility requirements, you can purchase an affordable basic liability policy through California’s Low Cost Automobile (CLCA) Insurance program.

While the liability limits are lower than the required liability insurance limits in the state, they will still satisfy state financial responsibility laws. There are seven payment plans to choose from and no broker’s fee.

Learn more about the eligibility requirements for CLCA.

Car insurance rates in California must be based on three mandatory factors:

1. Driving safety record

2. Number of miles driven annually

3. Years of driving experience

After that, there are optional factors that insurance companies can consider, including the type of vehicle, use of vehicle, whether your household has multiple vehicles, and more.

Some distinctive state laws make car insurance in California unique.

California is one of a handful of states that prohibit insurance companies from using credit scores in determining auto insurance rates (along with Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Michigan). Gender is also banned as a rating factor.

Proposition 103 is a key factor in calculating California auto insurance rates. It was passed because car insurance rates were rising substantially at the time, and its proponents believed a very rigid rate structure could resolve the problem, said Stephen Young, senior vice president and general counsel at the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of California.

California’s Prop 103 requires that insurers get approval for rate changes from the California Department of Insurance before the rates take effect. It also allows consumer participation in the rate-setting process, including allowing consumer “intervenors” to attend rate hearings and request to be heard, make written comments, and even give testimony.

Young said that California is the only state where insurance companies can’t determine a driver’s rate based on their car’s telematics technology, which measures things like how fast you drive, how hard you brake, and if you’re distracted while driving.

Learn more: How usage-based insurance works for drivers

These limitations have “prohibited auto insurers from being able to apply discounts or use factors that are commonly used in other states that, frankly, are helpful in not only reducing rates, but also in more fairly allocating risks,” Young said.

Indeed, braking behavior is the No. 1 factor insurers have found that predicts potential claims and loss, said Young.

Learn more: How does your ZIP code affect your car insurance?

Another way that California car insurance is unique is the “take all comers” provision in the California insurance code, Young said.

If a driver in California meets the state’s “good driver” definition, insurance companies are not only required to sell the driver a policy, but are also required to give the driver lower rates than drivers who don’t meet the definition. According to the California Department of Insurance, “your rates as a Good Driver must be at least 20% lower than a non-Good Driver’s rates would be at the same insurance company.”

Moreover, California car insurers cannot refuse to continue to renew a policy as long as the driver pays the premium, hasn’t committed some sort of fraud, and hasn’t dramatically changed the use of the vehicle.

Consider these strategies for finding cheap California car insurance.

The tried-and-true method for finding cheaper car insurance is to get quotes from several companies to find the best deal.

The California Department of Insurance offers a comparison tool where you can fill in general information such as your driving record, location, and the annual mileage you typically drive. Then, using one vehicle provided by the state as an example, the tool provides sample rates from all the insurance companies offering policies in each county in California.

This can serve as a starting point for cost comparisons, and you can then get real quotes from the insurers that are likely to offer the cheapest auto insurance to you.

If you have collision insurance and comprehensive insurance, you can raise your deductible to lower your premium. If you make a claim, you’ll have to pay more toward vehicle repairs, but you’ll save money up-front with the lower premiums.

Most car insurance discounts are applied automatically by insurers, like the good driver discount. But it doesn’t hurt to ask your insurance agent to go over the possible discounts you may be eligible for. For example, if you have a full-time high school or college student on the policy who gets good grades, ask about a good student discount. Even home-schooled students may be eligible.

Tim Manni edited this article.

Unless stated otherwise, the estimates above are generated by Trellis’ in-house machine learning models based on over 3 million data points, and include more than 15 of the largest insurance companies in Trellis’ nationwide data set. This includes data from more than 2 million insurance accounts connected through Trellis Connect, an in-house technology allowing consumers to “link” their insurance accounts before searching for insurance, and tens of thousands of policies bound by Trellis’ own agents. It takes into account a myriad of factors to create predictions, such as:

• Policyholder age

• Number of vehicles

• ZIP code

• Vehicle age

• Insurer

• …and more

Trellis creates estimates by running models against multiple inputs to the parameters of interest. For instance, the “teen driver” estimates were created by adjusting the policyholder age input into the pricing model while keeping all other variables steady from the baseline for “full coverage.” The models enable hyper-personalized estimates that take into account a plethora of user attribute permutations (e.g., teen drivers in specific states, teen drivers with new vehicles, teen drivers in specific states with new vehicles) to provide individuals with a unique and tailored experience. The charts above are a subset of the kinds of personalization Trellis can do.

The following are definitions used by Trellis when providing its rate estimates for various types of coverage:

Full coverage car insurance: A policy with comprehensive, collision, and liability coverage

Average policyholder: A 48-year-old driver who owns a 13-year-old vehicle and lives in an average-income ZIP code

Senior driver: A 70-year-old policyholder with full coverage car insurance

Good driver: Drivers across all coverage types, vehicle types, and locations who have no tickets, accidents, or DUIs