Ranked: Car Insurance Companies With the Best Rates Now

What auto insurance companies have the cheapest rates? While it's impossible to say where you will find the cheapest auto insurance rates, there is publicly available information that shows where the lowest average monthly premiums are.

With that in mind, here are 10 of the largest U.S. auto insurance companies, ranked in order from cheapest average premium to most expensive. Then, we'll discuss some of the factors that determine how much you'll pay for insurance, and why the cheapest insurer for you might not be the cheapest on the list.

Which auto insurance companies are the cheapest now?

According to an analysis by Policygenius, here are the average monthly costs of full-coverage auto insurance by 10 of the largest insurance companies, ranked from cheapest to most expensive:

Of course, there are more than 10 auto insurance companies that offer coverage in the United States, so this isn't meant to be an exhaustive list. It can be a smart idea to shop around with some of the smaller companies that write policies in your state, just in case they offer a better deal for you than bigger companies.

This doesn't mean you will find these companies the cheapest

To be sure, there is a lot of information that is used to determine what your auto insurance premium will be. Just to name a few factors, your insurance company is likely to take into consideration:

• The state you live in
• Your age
• Your marital status
• The particular year, make, and model of your vehicle
• Whether you buy any other insurance through the same company (bundling discounts)
• If you've taken a defensive driving course
• How long it's been since your last ticket or accident
• Your previous history of insurance claims
• Your credit history
• How many miles you drive per year

This isn't an exhaustive list, but one major takeaway is that every auto insurance company has its own underwriting methodology and may assign different weights to the factors that create your customer profile.

As a personal example, my wife and I recently decided to try and shop around for insurance and found that Geico (our current insurer) was by far the cheapest for us, even though there are others with lower average premiums. One possible explanation is our long-standing relationship with the company. We've been insured by Geico for 14 years and we've never had an accident. The point is that the insurance company where you find the cheapest coverage could be different than the cheapest listed in the table above.

The bottom line is that the only reliable way to find the cheapest auto insurance for you is to shop around. Most of the auto insurers on our radar allow you to get a quote quickly and easily, and you might be surprised at how much you might be able to save.