How Much Does Auto Insurance Cost for College Students in Maryland?

Our content editors always give us grief that when writing about car insurance, the word cheap really shouldn’t be used anywhere in the article to describe car insurance rates. Forgive the oxymoron, but cheap auto insurance for college students can be difficult to find. Don’t get your dauber down, because we will tell you how you can still get auto insurance that doesn’t break your budget.

For students in college, one of the largest criteria that helps car insurance companies calculate the policy price is where you live in Maryland. Areas with more people or more claims like Baltimore, Towson, and Catonsville tend to pay slightly more, whereas areas that tend to be more rural have the gratification of cheap insurance for college students in Maryland.

The table below lists the most expensive areas in Maryland for college students in which to buy car insurance.

Rate information is approximated as the specific Maryland residence address can impact coverage prices greatly.

Finding out which company has the best insurance rates for college students requires a little more work than just comparing rates from one or two companies.

Every car insurance company has their own unique process to set premium rates, so let’s take a look at the most competitive insurance companies in Maryland.

Best Car Insurance Prices for College Students

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USAA normally has some of the lowest car insurance rates in Maryland at around $920 per year. Liberty Mutual, Penn National, Erie, and State Auto would also be considered some of the cheaper Maryland car insurance companies.

In the rate table above, if you have coverage with Liberty Mutual and switched to USAA, you may see a yearly savings of around $172. Maryland drivers with Penn National could save as much as $173 a year, and Erie customers might reduce rates by $195 a year.

If you want to see how much you could save, click here to start a quote or quote rates from the companies below.

Bear in mind that those estimates are averages across all ages of drivers and types of vehicles and and are not calculated with a price surcharge for college students. So the auto insurance company that has the lowest price for you may not even be featured in the chart above. That emphasizes why you need to compare rates from multiple companies using your own specific driver information and vehicle.

We all like different vehicles, and the type of vehicle you are trying to insure is one of the largest considerations in finding cheap insurance for college students in Maryland. Vehicles with more horsepower, a lack of modern safety features, or an increased likelihood of liability claims will cost more to insure than more modest models. The data below presents insurance premiums for a handful of the cheapest vehicles to insure in Maryland.

Cost estimates assume single male driver age 20, no speeding tickets, no at-fault accidents, $500 deductibles, and Maryland minimum liability limits. Discounts applied include safe-driver, and claim-free. Estimates do not factor in specific location information which can raise or lower premiums considerably.

Prices based on single male driver age 20, no speeding tickets, no at-fault accidents, $500 deductibles, and Maryland minimum liability limits. Discounts applied include claim-free, and safe-driver. Information does not factor in zip code location which can raise or lower prices greatly.

Prices based on single male driver age 20, no speeding tickets, no at-fault accidents, $500 deductibles, and Maryland minimum liability limits. Discounts applied include safe-driver, and claim-free. Price information does not factor in zip code location which can change premiums substantially.

How violations and accidents impact rates

The easiest method to score cheap insurance for college students in Maryland is to drive carefully and avoid accidents and traffic violations. The diagram below demonstrates how traffic citations and accidents can increase annual premium costs for different insured age categories. The costs are based on a married male driver, comp and collision included, $500 deductibles, and no discounts are factored in.

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In the prior example, the average cost of auto insurance in Maryland per year with no violations or accidents is $1,629. Add in one speeding ticket and the average cost swells to $1,872, an increase of $243 each year. Now add in one accident along with the one speeding ticket and the yearly cost of insurance for college students increases to an average of $2,547. That’s an increase of $918, or $77 per month, just for not driving safely!

Rate difference between full and liability-only coverage

Finding cheap insurance for college students in Maryland is the goal of the majority of vehicle owners, and one of the best ways to reduce the cost of insurance is to only pay for liability coverage. The information below illustrates the difference between premium costs with and without physical damage coverage, medical payments, and uninsured/under-insured motorist coverage. Data assumes no violations or claims, $250 deductibles, single status, and no additional discounts are factored in.

google.charts.setOnLoadCallback(drawFclqcibChart);function drawFclqcibChart() {var data = google.visualization.arrayToDataTable([[‘Age of Insured’, ‘Full Coverage with $250 Deductibles’, ‘Liability Only’],[‘Age 20’, 3629,1225],[‘Age 30’, 1905,673],[‘Age 40’, 1873,623],[‘Age 50’, 1707,585],[‘Age 60’, 1651,575],[‘Age 70’, 2007,767]]);var options = {title: ‘Comparison of Rates for Full Coverage and Liability Only’,titleTextStyle: {color: ‘#333’,fontSize: 17,bold: true},width: ‘100%’,height: 500,’chartArea’: {left:100,top:50,’width’: ‘100%’, ‘height’: ‘70%’},legend: {position: ‘bottom’},colors: [‘#6791b9′,’#98bee2’],hAxis: {title: ‘Annual Auto Insurance Cost for Average Vehicle in Maryland’,minValue: 0,format: ‘$###,###’},vAxis: {title: ‘Age of Insured’}};var formatter = new google.visualization.NumberFormat({fractionDigits: 0,prefix: ‘$’});formatter.format(data,1);formatter.format(data,2);var chart = new google.visualization.BarChart(document.getElementById(‘qcibfcl’));chart.draw(data, options);}

Averaged for all age groups, physical damage insurance costs $2,129 per year over and above liability only. That raises the question if paying for full coverage is a waste of money. There is no definitive rule for excluding comp and collision coverage, but there is a general guideline you can use. If the annual cost of comprehensive and collision coverage is more than around 10% of the replacement cost minus the deductible, then it may be the right time to buy liability only.

For example, let’s assume your vehicle’s replacement value is $9,000 and you have $1,000 deductibles. If your vehicle is totaled, you would only receive $8,000 after paying your policy deductible. If you are currently paying more than $800 a year to have full coverage, then it might be time to buy liability only.

Does Progressive, Allstate, Geico, or State Farm have the cheapest car insurance?

When it comes to car insurance for students in college, the companies that insure more vehicles than anyone else are Progressive, Allstate, Geico, and State Farm. They all have your normal coverages like liability, comprehensive, and collision, but each one offers a slightly different mix of options and features that shoppers can choose from. The next table ranks ratings for price and service, as well as some optional coverages offered by each one.