The Lifetime Price Tag of Car Insurance

Quick quiz: what do you think will cost more -- a four-year college education or the total lifetime expense for your car insurance premiums?

The average cost of a four-year state university, tuition and fees, is approximately $8,000 to $12,000 a year; or upwards of $50,000 for four years. (Of course, private colleges are considerably more costly.) How does the average auto insurance premium compare?

Believe it or not, according to an online insurance quoting study, the average U.S. driver will fork out $84,388 for car insurance throughout their life. 

The survey compared quotes and calcualted the average premiums for consumers who first purchased insurance at age 21, married at 27, briefly insured two teens and stopped driving at age 75. The survey data includes drivers with a wide variety of driving histories and claims/violations.

To put that into perspective, if a driver buys a new vehicle every seven years, beginning at age 22, they will spend an average (using 2011 dollars) of $150,065.71. Therefore, car insurance premiums run about 56 percent of the cost of the vehicles being insured.