Car insurance in Florida has skyrocketed to nearly $4,000 per year, according to a new report by finance website Bankrate—the highest premiums in the country.
The cost of car insurance has recently increased throughout the U.S. to reach a national average of $2,543 in 2024, with the New York City-based consumer financial services company calculating that it shot up by 26 percent over the last year alone. Florida is currently where drivers are paying the highest cost for their car insurance, at an average annual premium of $3,945, according to Bankrate.
The Sunshine State is already in the midst of a home insurance crisis, with homeowners facing the highest premiums in the country at an estimated annual rate of over $4,000, according to Insurance.com. The increased costs have left many Floridians in despair about their future in the state, with some telling Newsweek that they were considering leaving as they cannot afford higher premiums.
To estimate the true cost of car insurance in the U.S., Bankrate calculated how much of their income Americans spend on vehicle coverage. With a national median household income of $74,580, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans are estimated to spend 3.41 percent of their wages on car insurance. In Florida, drivers are spending 5.69 percent of their income on it.
The only state worse off than Florida is Louisiana, where drivers are paying 6.53 percent of their annual income on car coverage, for an average annual premium of $3,618. The only other state where residents paid over 5 percent of their income on car insurance was Michigan, with 5.01 percent. Drivers there pay an average annual premium of $3,356.
In Nevada, drivers pay an average annual premium of $3,549, for 4.91 percent of their average income, while in New York residents paid 4.83 percent of their income on car insurance which cost them an average annual premium of $3,840.
"Between 2020 and 2024, inflation increased the cost of vehicle parts and labor, car crash fatalities increased by over 10 percent, and while extreme weather claims become more frequent and expensive, that is especially true in states like Florida, California and Louisiana," licensed insurance agent and Bankrate Analyst Shannon Martin told Newsweek. "Insurance companies are now attempting to recoup losses from the past few years while trying to rate the risk of future losses accurately."
The states with the cheapest car insurance were Vermont, for an average annual premium of $1,353, Idaho, with $1,421, Maine, with $1,507, Ohio, with $1,514, and Wyoming, with $1,581.
The ones that spent the least amount of their annual income on car insurance were Massachusetts (1.76 percent), Hawaii (1.79 percent), Washington (1.80 percent), New Hampshire (1.82 percent), and Vermont (1.83 percent).
Martin told Newsweek that insurance premiums probably won't decrease this year, but they may start to stabilize in 2025. "If household incomes increase, the percentage of income policyholders pay will decrease even though the premiums will stay around the same," she said. "Hopefully, this will help ease some of the financial burden we are experiencing."
Are you a Florida or Louisiana driver facing higher car insurance premiums? Are you worried they're going to continue increasing? Contact g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.
Update, 2/14/24 4:45 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include comments from Bankrate's analyst Shannon Martin.
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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek Reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. and European politics, global affairs ... Read more
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