IRC Releases State Auto Insurance Affordability Rankings

Louisiana, Florida, and Michigan are the three least affordable states for personal auto insurance, according to a new report by the Insurance Research Council (IRC).

The three most affordable states, IRC finds, are Hawaii, New Hampshire, and North Dakota.

The state-by-state affordability rankings by IRC -- like Triple-I, an affiliate of The Institutes -- are based on insurance expenditures as a share of median household income.

The report draws on data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), which are only available up to 2019 and, therefore, don’t reflect more recent circumstances, such as the pandemic and the inflationary impact of supply-chain disruptions and the war in Ukraine.

Before these events, auto insurance nationwide had been becoming more affordable since the 1990s, when premiums as a percentage of median household income averaged 1.9 percent. By the 2010s, it had decreased to 1.6 percent, and, in 2019, that figure stood at 1.56 percent.