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Full coverage costs about $1,613 a year on average in the United States, and comprehensive-only cover costs about $1,096. The $517 gap is the price of collision coverage. Both figures come from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ 2024 average premiums: liability $813 a year, collision $516, and comprehensive $283. Add liability and comprehensive and you get the comprehensive-only package at $1,096. Add all three and you get full coverage at $1,613. The question is not which label sounds better. It is whether the $517 a year you save by dropping collision is worth the risk of paying for your own crash repairs. This guide puts the two side by side at the same driver, vehicle, and state, so the saving is a real number instead of a guess.
What do full coverage and comprehensive-only actually buy?
Full coverage is not a policy type. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners says there is no such thing as a full coverage auto policy. The phrase means liability plus collision plus comprehensive, the three coverages that together pay for damage to other people and to your own car. Liability pays for injuries and property damage you cause to others, and nearly every state requires it. Collision pays to repair or replace your car after a crash, no matter who was at fault. Comprehensive pays for damage that is not a crash: theft, hail, flooding, fire, vandalism, falling objects, and animal strikes. Comprehensive-only cover means liability plus comprehensive, with collision left out. Your car is still protected against theft and weather, but a crash you cause, or a crash with an uninsured driver and no other cover in place, comes out of your pocket. The distinction matters because the two coverages pay for different events, and dropping one does not remove the other. Our comprehensive vs collision coverage guide explains the split claim by claim, and our comprehensive and collision insurance guide shows how the pair works together on a single incident.
How much does full coverage cost vs comprehensive-only?
The table below uses the NAIC’s 2024 average premiums, the latest filed figures available at write time. The comprehensive-only column is liability plus comprehensive at the same state average, so the two columns compare the same driver, vehicle, and state. The saving column is what dropping collision keeps in your pocket each year.
| Where | Full coverage (liability + collision + comprehensive) | Comprehensive-only (liability + comprehensive) | What dropping collision saves |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States average | $1,613 a year | $1,096 a year | $517 a year |
| New York | $2,150 a year | $1,528 a year | $622 a year |
| Florida | $2,175 a year | $1,669 a year | $506 a year |
| Illinois | $1,383 a year | $910 a year | $473 a year |
Two patterns stand out. First, collision is the expensive half of the physical damage pair everywhere: $516 a year on average against $283 for comprehensive, nearly double. Collision claims are larger and more frequent than comprehensive claims, which is why the premium follows. Second, the saving from dropping collision is fairly stable across states, from $473 in Illinois to $622 in New York, because the collision premium itself does not vary as much as liability does. Florida’s high full coverage price comes mostly from liability at $1,391 a year, not from collision or comprehensive, which sit close to the national averages. Averages are not quotes, and your own numbers will differ by car, age, record, and ZIP code, but the shape holds: dropping collision saves roughly a third of a full coverage premium. State-by-state full coverage figures are in our full coverage car insurance cost by state guide, and the definition of full coverage itself is covered in our what is full coverage car insurance guide.
What does dropping collision save, and what does it risk?
Take a paid-off car worth $8,000, insured at the national average premiums with a $500 collision deductible. Full coverage costs $1,613 a year. Comprehensive-only costs $1,096. Dropping collision saves $517 a year. Over three claim-free years, that is $1,551 kept. The risk is a crash. If you cause a crash that does $4,000 of damage to your own car, comprehensive-only pays nothing toward it, and you pay the full $4,000. One such crash wipes out more than seven years of savings. The break-even question is how likely that crash is. The Insurance Information Institute reports that the average collision claim ran about $5,489 in 2024, and collision claims are frequent enough that most drivers will file one eventually. The math favors keeping collision while the car is worth enough that a crash would hurt. It favors dropping collision when the car’s value falls to the point where the premium plus the deductible approaches the most the policy could ever pay. On a car worth $3,000 with a $500 deductible, the maximum collision payout is $2,500, and at $516 a year in premium you spend a fifth of the car’s value every year to protect it. On a car worth $15,000, the same premium protects $14,500 after the deductible, and the trade looks very different. Deductibles shift the numbers too. Raising the collision deductible from $250 to $1,000 cuts the collision premium by a meaningful percentage, while the same move on comprehensive saves less in dollars because comprehensive is cheaper to begin with. Our collision vs comprehensive deductible guide works through that choice in detail.
When does comprehensive-only make sense?
Comprehensive-only fits a narrow set of situations, and each one has a clear test. The car is paid off, so no lender requires collision. The car is worth little enough that replacing it out of pocket would sting but not break you. A common rule of thumb is to consider dropping collision when the annual collision premium plus the deductible comes to more than about 10% of the car’s value. The car is a second vehicle that is rarely driven, so the chance of a crash in a year is low. You have savings set aside to replace the car, so a crash is an inconvenience rather than a crisis. You drive in an area with high theft, hail, or animal strike risk, where comprehensive earns its keep on its own. Hail damage, a stolen car, or a deer strike are all comprehensive claims, and they are the claims that happen to parked and slow-moving cars. If several of those tests pass at once, comprehensive-only is a reasonable way to cut about a third off the premium. If none of them pass, the saving is not worth the exposure.
When does comprehensive-only not make sense?
Keep collision in four cases. You have a loan or a lease, because the lender requires both collision and comprehensive until the car is paid off, and dropping collision can breach the loan terms. The car is worth real money, generally more than about $5,000, because a single crash can cost more than years of premiums. You could not afford to replace the car from savings, because a crash would leave you without transport and without the money to fix it. You drive a lot, commute in heavy traffic, or park on the street, because crash exposure follows miles and traffic, not the age of the car. One more case is easy to miss: a new driver or a driver with a recent at-fault crash faces higher collision premiums, which makes dropping it tempting, but those are also the drivers most likely to need it. The premium is high because the risk is high, not in spite of it.
How do I price the switch on my own policy?
Ask your insurer or agent for the line-item premiums on your current policy: liability, collision, and comprehensive separately. Most declarations pages already list them. Subtract the collision line from the total to get your comprehensive-only price, and compare it with the full coverage total. That is your real saving, not a national average. Then check the deductible on each coverage, since a $1,000 collision deductible changes the value of the cover more than the premium alone suggests. Check whether your lender requires collision, and check whether dropping it affects any bundling discount on the policy. Some carriers tie a multi-policy discount to keeping full coverage, and losing it can eat part of the saving. Finally, re-price the switch every year. A car loses value each year, so a switch that made no sense at $15,000 can make sense at $6,000. Set a reminder at renewal to compare the collision premium against the car’s current value, and drop the coverage when the math turns.
Key takeaways
At NAIC 2024 average premiums, full coverage runs $1,613 a year and comprehensive-only runs $1,096, a saving of about $517 a year from dropping collision. Collision costs $516 a year on average, nearly double comprehensive at $283, because collision claims are larger and more frequent. Dropping collision makes sense on a paid-off, low-value car you could afford to replace, and it does not make sense on a financed car, a car worth real money, or a car you could not replace from savings. Price the switch from your own policy’s line items, not from a national average, and re-check it at every renewal as the car’s value falls.
Frequently asked questions
Is comprehensive-only cheaper than full coverage?
Yes. At NAIC 2024 average premiums, comprehensive-only cover, which is liability plus comprehensive, costs $1,096 a year against $1,613 for full coverage. Dropping collision saves about $517 a year on average, or roughly a third of the full coverage premium.
What is the difference between full coverage and comprehensive?
Comprehensive is one coverage that pays for non-crash damage such as theft, hail, flooding, and animal strikes. Full coverage is a bundle of three coverages: liability, collision, and comprehensive. Comprehensive-only cover keeps liability and comprehensive and leaves out collision, which is the cover that pays for crash damage to your own car.
Can I drop collision and keep comprehensive?
Yes, if you own the car outright. Collision and comprehensive are separate coverages, and you can carry one without the other. If you have a loan or a lease, the lender almost always requires both until the car is paid off.
How much is comprehensive insurance alone?
The NAIC’s 2024 average comprehensive premium is $283 a year in the United States. Comprehensive is usually bought with liability, which averages $813 a year, so a liability plus comprehensive package averages about $1,096 a year before discounts and state variation.
Is it worth dropping full coverage on an older car?
Often, yes, once the car is worth little. Consider dropping collision when the annual collision premium plus your deductible comes to more than about 10% of the car’s value, the car is paid off, and you could afford to replace it from savings. Keep comprehensive, since it is cheap and covers theft and weather.
Does comprehensive cover accidents?
No. Comprehensive covers non-crash damage such as theft, hail, flooding, fire, vandalism, and animal strikes. Damage from a crash with another car or a fixed object is a collision claim, not a comprehensive claim, even when the crash was not your fault.
Sources: NAIC 2024 Auto Insurance Database average premiums (liability $813.27, collision $516.39, comprehensive $283.15, combined $1,612.81), Insurance Information Institute average collision claim data for 2024, ValuePenguin State of Auto Insurance 2025 (NAIC-based rate data).
