You typed a reasonable question into a search bar and got back a confident dollar figure. I want to explain why that figure is probably wrong, where the real numbers come from, and what actually determines what you'll pay — because the honest version of this answer is more useful than a made-up average.
I'm a Farmers agent in Richardson, and I can also rate policies through additional markets, so I see a lot of premiums for a lot of different households. The spread is enormous. Two families on the same street, same size house, similar cars, can be several hundred dollars a year apart for reasons that are completely explainable once you see both policies — and invisible from the outside.
So this guide does two things. It shows you what the authoritative data actually says, with the dates attached, and then it walks through the factors that move your specific number. If you want the coverage side of an auto policy rather than the price side, that's the complete Texas auto insurance guide.
Why can't anyone tell you your rate without your information?
The short answer: Because a premium is calculated from dozens of facts about your household, and a national or state average contains none of them.
An auto premium isn't a price on a shelf. It's the output of a rating algorithm the carrier has filed with the Texas Department of Insurance, run against specific inputs: who drives, what they drive, where it's parked overnight, what coverage you chose, what deductibles, what the driving records look like, how long you've been continuously insured.
Change any one of those and the number moves. Which is why a published average is a genuinely poor predictor of an individual premium — it's the middle of a very wide distribution, and almost nobody sits at the middle.
There's a second problem specific to this question, and it's the reason I structured this article the way I did: the good public data is old. Not wrong — old. And in a market that moved as fast as this one has since 2021, old data is its own kind of wrong.
What do the official averages actually say?
The short answer: The most recent NAIC state-level average expenditure is from 2021, when the countrywide figure was $1,061.54. Treat that as history, not as a current quote.
Here's the honest state of the public data, because I think you deserve to know how thin it is.
The Insurance Information Institute, drawing on National Association of Insurance Commissioners data, reports that the countrywide average auto insurance expenditure rose 1.4% to $1,061.54 in 2021 from $1,046.37 in 2020 — and describes 2021 as the latest data available. The NAIC calculates that figure assuming all insured vehicles carry liability but not necessarily collision or comprehensive, so it measures what people spend per vehicle, not the cost of a full-coverage policy.
The NAIC itself is careful about what the number means. It doesn't account for policyholder classifications, vehicle characteristics, deductibles chosen, differences in state tort law, traffic conditions, or other demographic variables — all of which significantly affect what coverage costs. It does note that three variables correlate with state premiums: urban population, miles driven per highway mile, and disposable income per capita.
Texas, for its part, ranks tenth nationally on the Insurance Research Council's affordability index, where Texas households spent 1.93% of median household income on auto insurance — but that figure is from 2018.
Why has it gone up so much?
The short answer: Claims got far more expensive. Repairs, medical costs, and vehicle complexity all rose together, and premiums followed.
This is the part the averages actually can tell you, because the trend data is solid even where the level data is stale.
Premiums follow claims, and claims have gotten dramatically more expensive:
- Bodily injury claims. Per ISO data reported by the Triple-I, the average auto liability claim for bodily injury was $24,211 in 2022. A decade earlier, in 2012, average bodily injury claim severity was $14,690.
- Property damage claims. The average auto liability property damage claim was $5,313 in 2022, against $3,073 in 2012.
- Collision claims. The average collision claim reached $5,992 in 2022. And for recent-model vehicles the numbers are steeper still — the Highway Loss Data Institute puts collision claim severity for 2021–2023 model year passenger cars at $9,782, pickups at $9,512, and SUVs at $9,608.
That last figure is the one I'd sit with. A modern vehicle is a computer wrapped in sheet metal — sensors in the bumpers, cameras in the mirrors, calibration required after a repair that used to be a straightforward panel swap. The cars got safer and more expensive to fix at the same time, and insurance prices the second thing.
None of this means your specific increase was justified, and it's absolutely worth re-shopping when a renewal jumps. But it does explain why "just switch carriers" produced smaller savings than it used to: the whole market moved, not one company.
What actually determines your number?
The short answer: Drivers, vehicles, garaging address, coverage choices, claims history, and — in Texas — credit-based insurance score. Some you control; several you don't.
The Texas Department of Insurance lists the common factors carriers use, and in my experience these six move the number most:
Who's on the policy
Age and driving record of every rated driver. Adding a teen is usually the single largest premium change a household will ever see; removing one, or a violation aging off, works the same way in reverse.
What you drive
Repair cost drives this more than sticker price. A vehicle loaded with sensors and cameras costs more to fix after a minor collision, and that flows straight into your comprehensive and collision rating.
Where it's parked overnight
Garaging address, down to the ZIP. Traffic density, theft and vandalism rates, weather exposure, and local repair costs all vary — and DFW ZIPs are not interchangeable.
Coverage and deductibles
Liability limits, whether you carry collision and comprehensive, coverage for uninsured drivers, PIP, and the deductibles on each. This is the part of the equation you actually control outright.
Claims and coverage history
Past at-fault claims and any gap in continuous coverage. A lapse is the one that surprises people — it can raise what you pay for years, long after the gap closed.
Credit-based insurance score
Texas permits carriers to use a credit-based insurance score in rating. It isn't your credit score and it isn't used identically by every carrier — but it's real, and it's part of why quotes differ so widely between companies.
How does your driver profile change the math?
The short answer: Enormously. The same coverage on the same car can differ by a multiple depending on who's rated on the policy and what their record looks like.
I can't publish premium figures by profile — any number I invented would be a guess about a household I haven't met, and the honest public data doesn't break down that way. What I can tell you is the direction and rough magnitude of each profile's effect, which is what actually helps you plan.
| Profile | Typical effect on premium | What moves it most |
|---|---|---|
| Teen driver added to a family policy | Largest single increase most households see | Good student, distant student, telematics, vehicle assignment |
| Driver in their 20s, clean record | Above average, improving yearly | Continuous coverage, record staying clean, re-rating annually |
| Established household, clean record | Lowest relative cost | Bundling, multi-car, claims-free history, paid-in-full |
| Recent at-fault accident | Significant increase for several years | Time, carrier appetite — this is where shopping matters most |
| Coverage lapse in the last few years | Penalized across every carrier | Rebuilding continuous coverage; never lapsing again |
| Mature driver, long clean history | Favorable, but watch vehicle cost | A newer, sensor-heavy vehicle can offset a great record |
The row worth staring at is the accident one. A recent at-fault claim is where carrier appetites diverge most sharply — one company may price you out entirely while another treats the same record as ordinary business. That's the situation where having several markets to check stops being a nicety and starts being the whole game.
What does living in DFW change?
The short answer: Traffic density, hail, and repair costs — all of which push North Texas above what a rural Texas ZIP would pay for identical coverage.
The NAIC notes that urban population and miles driven per highway mile correlate with state premiums, and the same logic operates within a state. Dallas–Fort Worth concentrates all of it: heavy traffic, long commutes, and a lot of vehicles in a small area.
Then there's hail. Texas led the nation in major hail events for the eleventh consecutive year in 2025, and hail damages cars, not just roofs. That's comprehensive coverage, not collision — a distinction that catches people out. If you've dropped comprehensive to save money on a car you'd need to replace, North Texas is a rough place to make that bet.
There's also the uninsured driver problem. As of September 2025 the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles estimated 11.87% of Texas drivers were uninsured — roughly one in eight vehicles around you. That's not a premium factor you control, but it's the reason I argue hard for keeping uninsured motorist coverage rather than cutting it to save a few dollars.
What can you actually control?
The short answer: Coverage structure, deductibles, discounts, continuous coverage, and how often you let someone re-rate you. That's a shorter list than the factors that set your price — but it's the list that matters.
Ranked roughly by how much they tend to move the number:
- Re-rate every year. Carrier appetites and filed rates change annually. The company that was sharpest for you two years ago frequently isn't now — and that's true without anything about you changing at all.
- Claim every discount you qualify for. Most aren't automatic. The full list, with eligibility criteria and what you have to produce, is in Texas auto insurance discounts, explained.
- Never let coverage lapse. The cheapest thing on this list and the one people get wrong most often. A gap follows you into every future quote.
- Tune deductibles honestly. Raising a collision or comprehensive deductible lowers premium — but only take one you could fund tomorrow.
- Consider telematics, with eyes open. For low-mileage households with clean records it's often the largest single lever available. For long commutes and stop-and-go traffic it can work against you.
How do you get a real number?
The short answer: A quote at matched coverage, from more than one carrier, with all your discounts applied. It takes about fifteen minutes and it's the only figure that means anything.
Here's what makes a comparison honest, and it's worth insisting on regardless of who you get quotes from:
- Identical limits and deductibles across every quote. A cheaper premium at lower limits isn't a better price — it's a different product. This is the single most common way people fool themselves.
- All rated drivers disclosed. A quote that omits a household driver isn't a quote, it's a number that will change at underwriting.
- Discounts applied before you compare, not after you commit.
- The declarations page, not the headline. When the policy issues, read what actually got written.
Then you read them side by side. Quote A carries 100/300/100 liability with matching uninsured motorist coverage and a $500 comprehensive deductible. Quote B carries state-minimum 30/60/25, no uninsured motorist coverage, and a $2,000 comprehensive deductible.
Those aren't two prices for the same thing — they're two different policies. Rebuild B at A's coverage and the gap narrows or reverses. And in a hail market, that $1,500 deductible difference is a bill waiting for a specific April. Figures are illustrative and chosen to show the shape of the trap; they are not carrier quotes.
To quote you properly I need: ZIP and garaging address, every driver in the household with dates of birth and license status, year/make/model of each vehicle, your current coverage limits and deductibles, and an honest account of any accidents, violations, or coverage gaps. Fifteen minutes on the phone, or send me your current declarations page and I'll work from that.
The bottom line
The short answer: There's no meaningful "average" answer for you. There's a real number, it's specific to your household, and getting it is free.
The reason this question is so poorly served online is that the honest answer doesn't make for a satisfying headline. The best public data on Texas auto insurance costs is several years old, the market has moved sharply since it was collected, and the spread between households is wide enough that the average wouldn't tell you much even if it were current.
What's genuinely knowable: costs rose because claims got more expensive, and the factors that set your price are a mix of things you control and things you don't. Work the ones you control — coverage structure, discounts, continuous coverage, an annual re-rate — and let the rest be what it is.
If you want the actual number, that's a short conversation. Send me your declarations page and I'll price it across my markets at matched coverage and tell you honestly where you stand, including when you're already in good shape. I'm here in Richardson, I do this in English and Spanish, and there's a $10 e-gift card in it just for letting me prepare the quote.
Last reviewed by Jaime Mendez on September 9, 2026. This guide is educational and is not personalized insurance advice or a quote. Industry figures cited are from the sources and years stated and are not predictions of what any individual will pay. Texas insurance rates and carrier appetites change often, and this guide is refreshed quarterly.
