Car Insurance for Multiple Vehicles

Best car insurance for drivers with multiple vehicles

If you insure multiple cars and drivers on your policy, you understand how hard it can be to find an affordable multi-car insurance rate. While most insurance companies allow you to cover up to four vehicles and four drivers on one insurance policy, there are logistical and financial issues to sort out to ensure every driver is properly covered with you still receiving the best possible quote.

Let's review some ways to save and navigate on a multi-car policy.

What’s the cheapest insurance company for a driver with two vehicles on the same policy?

We created a user profile (detailed methodology) with two drivers and two vehicles and surveyed car insurance rates from some of the best car insurance companies.

Here are the results:

GEICO and Progressive are the cheapest car insurance companies for our user profile. State-minimum coverage through GEICO costs $424 less than the average among top insurance companies — about $109 per month. Progressive, the second cheapest, charges $1,492 per year, or about $124 per month.

Insuring different vehicles with different insurance companies

Consider you have two vehicles: a 2015 Honda Accord and a classic car. Your Accord is a pretty standard vehicle that gets you from A to B. Your classic car is your pride and joy, but it needs a little extra attention in terms of auto insurance.

The company with which you insure your A-to-B vehicle might not be the right insurer to cover your classic car, and vice versa. The company might not offer all the features you’d like to have, or might not even offer classic car insurance at all. You might want to consider a specialty lines insurance provider for this vehicle.

Aside from this specific example, there aren't many reasons to insure two vehicles with more than one company. By splitting your insurance policy with two companies, you miss out on a multi-car discount. While the amount of a multi-car discount varies by company, you will almost always save money by keeping your vehicles under one auto insurance company.

Secondly, you add an additional policy to manage and another car insurance company to deal with if you chose to insure your second vehicle elsewhere. When all your vehicles are together, you have one due date for your bills, one policy number, and one insurance premium.

Can the vehicles have different insurance coverage options?

While you must maintain the same liability insurance and uninsured/underinsured motorist limits, you have a little more freedom when it comes to comprehensive coverage and collision coverage. Because these coverages are not required by state law, you can have one fully insured with comprehensive and collision and leave another at the state-minimum liability level.

Consider this option if one of the insured vehicles isn’t particularly valuable and the other one is. A general rule of thumb in the auto insurance world is if your vehicle is worth less than $4,000, you probably won’t need additional physical coverage (comprehensive and collision). This is because the value of the premium paid for this coverage plus your deductible (as you could have to pay that in the event of a claim) doesn’t offer much financial payout to justify the premium.

As we stated, while you're able to have some freedom with your additional coverage, insurance companies like (and often require) you to keep the bodily injury and property damage limits the same.

How many vehicles can you insure with one auto insurance company?

While the exact number varies by company, the general standard is you can insure up to four vehicles and four drivers on an auto insurance policy. To insure more than four vehicles, some insurance companies will create another policy that is linked to the first. This additional policy would be heavily discounted to alleviate the additional cost of having a completely separate policy.

The additional details, such as setting up the same billing due dates, vary by company. However, many companies will allow you to change your due dates so they can match.

Through The Zebra's insurance quote tool, you can compare auto insurance rates from multiple car insurance companies for up to four vehicles and four drivers. Completing the questionnaire below will reveal the best coverages and rates for your multi-car policy. Fill in your zip code and get a car insurance quote today.