Weigh collision and comprehensive against what your car is worth, using published NAIC state premiums or the figures on your own policy.
Your numbers
What collision and comprehensive can return
These two coverages pay what your car is worth, less the deductible. The premium is not capped by anything. This shows both numbers side by side.
NAIC 2023
Average written premium per insured car-yearnaic-insurance-2023-v1
Sets the published collision and comprehensive averages. Your address is not collected.
$Actual cash value: what it would sell for now. Not what you paid, and not the loan balance.
$What you pay before collision cover starts, on a crash you cause.
$For theft, hail, flood, fire, and animal strikes. Often lower than the collision one.
Use your own premiums
Read them off your declarations page
Years of premium to equal a total-loss payout
5.9$929.06 a year against $5,500 of cover
The ceiling is close to the cost
A year of collision and comprehensive costs $929.06, and the most either can ever pay is $5,500. That is 5.9 years of premium for the whole benefit, and the benefit shrinks every year as the car does.
Whether that is worth buying depends on whether you could replace the car out of savings, which is a judgement this page cannot make for you.
Collision + comprehensive / year$929.062023 Texas average
Most it can ever pay$5,500Car value less the deductible, falling every year
Premium as a share of the car15.5%Annual cost measured against what is being covered
For comparison, liability alone averaged $797.86 a year in Texas in 2023. Liability pays other people and is required in almost every state; its worth is not capped by what your own car is worth, so it is not part of the comparison above.
How we got this
Collision and comprehensive / year$529.05 collision + $400.01 comprehensive$929.06
Most collision can pay$6,000 value − $1,000 deductible$5,000.00
Most comprehensive can pay$6,000 value − $500 deductible$5,500.00
Years of premium to equal that payout$5,500.00 ÷ $929.06 a year5.92
What we assumed
This compares what two coverages can pay against what they cost. It is not advice to keep or drop coverage, and it says nothing about how likely a claim is.
Collision and comprehensive pay the vehicle’s actual cash value at the time of loss, less the deductible, so the payout is capped by the car’s value while the premium is not.
Use the car’s actual cash value: what it would sell for the day before the loss, not what you paid, not the loan balance, and not a dealer’s asking price. Insurers set it themselves and it falls every year.
Liability coverage is not part of this comparison. It pays other people, is required in almost every state, and its value is not capped by what your own car is worth.
Dropping physical damage cover on a financed or leased vehicle usually breaches the loan or lease. Gap cover, rental reimbursement, roadside assistance, and custom-equipment cover are separate and not counted here.
A single deductible is assumed to apply per claim. Diminished value, depreciation disputes, total-loss thresholds, and state-specific settlement rules can move an actual payout.
Premiums are the NAIC 2023 average written premium per insured car-year for Texas, across every policy in the state. They are historical averages, not a quote, and your own car, record, and coverage limits can differ substantially.
Some Texas homeowners forms are similar to, but not identical with, the national policy forms.
Texas auto exposures are approximated from quarterly vehicle counts. Estimated comprehensive exposures affect the combined average, but not average expenditure.
These two coverages pay what your car is worth on the day of the loss, minus the deductible. That ceiling falls every year as the car depreciates. The premium does not follow it down, so on an old car the cost slowly catches up with the most the cover can ever return. This page puts the two numbers next to each other; it does not tell you what to do with them.
The benefit has a ceiling and the premium does not
Collision pays for damage to your own car in a crash you cause. Comprehensive pays for theft, hail, flood, fire, falling objects, and animal strikes. Both settle at the vehicle’s actual cash value less your deductible, so the most either can ever pay is what the car would have sold for the day before, minus that amount.
A car worth $30,000 with a $1,000 deductible carries up to $29,000 of cover. The same car five years later might be worth $6,000, carrying $5,000 of cover for a premium that has barely moved. Dividing the ceiling by the annual premium turns that into a single number: how many years of premium the entire benefit is worth.
When the deductible overtakes the car
If the deductible is at or above what the car is worth, a total loss returns nothing at all. The coverage is then paying for a benefit it structurally cannot deliver, and the calculator says so rather than showing a small number.
This is easy to arrive at without noticing: people raise deductibles to cut the premium while the car keeps depreciating, and the two lines cross quietly. Checking the actual cash value against the deductible once a year is the whole maintenance this requires.
Actual cash value is not what you think it is
It is what the car would sell for now, in its condition, with its mileage, in your area. It is not what you paid, not what you owe, and not a dealer’s asking price. Insurers set it themselves at claim time using their own valuation, and it is usually lower than owners expect.
If you owe more than the car is worth, dropping physical damage cover is generally not permitted by the lender, and gap coverage exists precisely because the settlement can fall short of the loan. Check the loan or lease terms before treating this as a live choice.
Liability is a different question entirely
Liability pays other people for injuries and damage you cause. Its worth has nothing to do with what your car is worth: a driver of a $2,000 car can cause a $200,000 injury claim. It is required in almost every state, and nothing on this page is about it.
It is shown alongside for context only, so you can see how the physical-damage premium compares with the part of the policy that is not optional. Reducing liability limits to save money is the opposite of the trade this page examines.
What the published averages can and cannot tell you
The state figures are NAIC averages of written premium per insured car-year across every policy in the state: every driver, record, vehicle, and coverage limit combined. They are useful for seeing the shape of the trade-off before you have a quote.
They are not your premium. Your record, vehicle, mileage, deductibles, and insurer move it a long way from the average. The moment you have a declarations page, enter the collision and comprehensive lines from it: the comparison then uses your actual cost rather than a benchmark.
Questions about this calculator
When should I drop collision and comprehensive?
There is no threshold that is right for everyone, which is why this page gives you the arithmetic rather than a verdict. The figures that matter are the most the cover can pay, which is your car’s value less the deductible, and what a year of it costs. The judgement on top is whether you could replace the car out of savings if it were destroyed tomorrow.
What is the difference between collision and comprehensive?
Collision covers damage to your own car from a crash, including one you cause. Comprehensive covers almost everything else that can happen to a parked or moving car that is not a collision: theft, hail, flood, fire, vandalism, and animal strikes. They are priced separately and usually carry different deductibles.
Is “full coverage” a real thing?
Not as a defined product. It usually means liability plus collision plus comprehensive, but the term is marketing rather than a policy form, and it says nothing about limits. Compare the individual coverages and their limits; two policies both described as full coverage can differ enormously.
My car is old. Can I keep just comprehensive?
Many insurers allow comprehensive without collision, since it covers theft and weather rather than driving. It is worth pricing separately, because comprehensive is usually the cheaper of the two while covering the losses an old car is still fully exposed to.
Does dropping coverage affect my liability insurance?
No. Liability is a separate coverage that pays other people, and it remains required in almost every state regardless of what you carry on your own vehicle. Dropping physical damage cover does not reduce your liability limits, and it should not be used as a way to reduce them.
Why is the payout less than what I paid for the car?
Because these coverages settle at actual cash value, which is what the car is worth at the moment of the loss after depreciation, not the purchase price. On a financed car this can be less than the loan balance, which is the gap that gap insurance exists to cover.
Can I lower the premium instead of dropping the coverage?
Raising the deductible usually does, but it lowers the ceiling too: the payout is the value minus the deductible, so a higher deductible cuts the benefit at both ends. Change the deductible figures here to see the cost and the ceiling move together rather than assuming only the premium changes.
Terms used here
Actual cash value
What the vehicle would have sold for immediately before the loss, after depreciation. The basis these coverages settle on.
Collision
Coverage for damage to your own vehicle from a crash, including one you are at fault for.
Comprehensive
Coverage for theft, weather, fire, vandalism, and animal strikes, rather than collision damage.
Physical damage coverage
Collision and comprehensive together: the part of a policy that pays for your own car.
Liability coverage
The part of a policy that pays other people for injury and damage you cause. Required in almost every state.
Gap coverage
Separate cover for the difference between a settlement and a loan balance when a car is worth less than is owed.
Written premium per car-year
NAIC’s measure: total premium written divided by twelve-month vehicle exposures.
Practical tips
Look up the actual cash value once a year; the ceiling on these coverages falls with it while the premium does not.
Check the collision and comprehensive lines separately on your declarations page: they are priced apart and often carry different deductibles.
Confirm what a loan or lease requires before treating physical damage cover as optional.
Move the deductible figures here before changing them on a policy, so you can see the ceiling fall at the same time as the premium.
Limits and caveats
This compares a capped benefit with its cost. It is not advice to keep or drop coverage, and it does not estimate how likely a claim is.
State premiums are historical NAIC averages across all policies, not a quote and not a prediction of your renewal.
Gap cover, rental reimbursement, roadside assistance, and custom equipment are separate coverages and are not counted here.
Diminished value, total-loss thresholds, and state settlement rules can move an actual payout away from value less deductible.
Rounding, versioning, and omissions that sit beside the guide rather than repeating it.
A capped benefit against an uncapped cost. Collision and comprehensive pay the vehicle’s actual cash value at the time of loss, less the deductible. That ceiling falls every year as the car depreciates, while the premium does not follow it down. Dividing the ceiling by the annual premium gives the years of premium the whole benefit is worth.
The two coverages are separated. Collision pays for damage you cause; comprehensive pays for theft, weather, fire, and animal strikes. NAIC publishes them separately, so they are shown separately, along with their own deductibles, which are commonly different amounts.
Liability is deliberately excluded. Liability pays other people, is required in almost every state, and its worth has nothing to do with what your own car is worth. Folding it into this comparison would make an unrelated legal obligation look optional, so it is shown alongside for context only.
What the averages are and are not. The premiums are average written premium per insured car-year across the whole state: every driver, record, vehicle, and coverage limit combined. They are a benchmark for the shape of the trade-off, not a prediction of your renewal. Enter your own declarations-page figures to make the comparison yours.
Calculation receipt
What each number here is
The arithmetic is decided by your inputs. Official data is printed beside the answer as context, and the answer stands without it.
OBSERVEDNAIC insurance database
Context printed beside the answer. The answer does not depend on it.