Tool

Car insurance coverage calculator

Not sure how much coverage is enough? Tell the calculator three things about your finances and your car, and it translates them into the four decisions that matter most: how high your liability limits should go, whether comprehensive and collision still earn their keep, what to do about uninsured-motorist coverage, and whether gap belongs on the policy. It asks for no name, no email, and no payment details, and it never guesses at a premium. What you get is a set of coverage levels to take to your insurer.

If you caused a serious accident and were sued, roughly how much could a judgment take from you? Add up savings, investment accounts, and the equity in your home. Skip 401(k)s, IRAs, and similar retirement accounts, since creditors generally cannot touch them.
Is the car leased, financed, or paid off? A lease or a loan usually comes with coverage conditions attached, and it also determines whether gap insurance has anything to protect.

What to ask your insurer for

Liability limits
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Comprehensive & collision (full coverage)
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Uninsured / underinsured motorist
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Gap insurance
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Ask us to review this with your policy

These are general rules of thumb, offered as education. Your state and your insurer set the coverage names, the options on offer, and the legal minimums, so check the details with your insurer before changing a policy.

What each line of the result means

Liability limits are the part of the policy that pays other people: their medical bills and their damaged property when an accident is your fault. Every state sets a floor, but the floor is about the other driver, not you. The reason to carry more is that once a claim exceeds your limits, the rest can come out of your savings, your home equity, and in some states your future wages. That is why the first question asks what you have to lose; the limits should be sized to that number. Our net-worth cheat sheet for liability limits lays out the tiers in detail.

Comprehensive and collision, together with liability, are what people mean by "full coverage," though no policy form uses that phrase. Collision pays to repair or replace your own car after a crash; comprehensive handles theft, hail, fire, flood, and animal strikes. Because the most either will ever pay is the car's value minus your deductible, an older car can reach a point where the premium outweighs any possible payout. A lender or leasing company will normally require both until the car is paid off. The guide on liability-only versus full coverage works through that trade-off, and how much car insurance you need covers the bigger picture.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage (UM/UIM) steps in on the other side of the same problem: a driver with no insurance, or with only the state minimum, hits you. It pays for your injuries when their policy cannot. Gap insurance addresses a different mismatch, between the balance on your loan or lease and what the car is actually worth. If the car is totaled, the insurer pays the value; gap covers whatever is still owed on top. See whether you need uninsured motorist coverage and how gap insurance works for the full explanations.

Limits of this tool

The calculator deals in coverage types and limits only. It has no idea what any policy costs, and it will never show you a premium, an estimate, or a savings figure. It also runs entirely on this page: nothing you select is stored, transmitted, or attached to you. The results come from a handful of general rules applied to three answers, so they can miss something important about your household, your state, or your car. How well a lawsuit can reach retirement savings or home equity, for example, depends on state law. Treat the output as a starting point for a conversation with your insurer, not as a substitute for one.