Will My Insurance Go Up After an Accident?

Image source: Pexels

If you’ve been involved in a car accident, you may be worried that your insurance could increase. In short, yes. This is entirely possible, especially if you are found to be the person who was at fault.

When a driver is involved in an at-fault accident, the typical increase runs from about 34% to 61%, and it lasts three to five years. Those two figures are not two estimates of the same thing, which is why the span is so wide. The 34% is what Insurify measures on liability-only cover, where there is less premium to surcharge in the first place. The 61% is what CarInsurance.com measures on full coverage after a claim above $2,000, which works out at about $1,575 more a year. The national averages quoted elsewhere, usually around 45% to 50%, sit inside that span rather than contradicting it.

How much your rate rises depends more on your insurer than on the accident itself, with rates rising from 26% at one carrier to a huge 82% at another. The best thing you can do instead of waiting for the cost of your existing insurance to jump is to begin shopping for a new policy right away to help get lower car insurance after an accident.

Why Does Insurance Go Up After an Accident?

Insurers describe the increase the same way, and it is forward-looking rather than a penalty for the crash itself. Farmers explains that rating assigns a price based on what the insurer expects future claims may cost, and that accident history is one part of a broader risk assessment. Liberty Mutual puts it in a sentence: car insurance premiums are about assessing risk. GEICO treats an at-fault accident as an indicator of higher future risk. You are not being charged for the accident you had, you are being repriced for the ones your insurer now expects.

That is why the size of the increase moves around so much. Allstate names the cost and severity of the claim as key factors, along with your driving record, who was at fault, and your state's rules. GEICO lists the payout amount of the claim and the number of claims you have made before. Farmers adds whether the accident involved injury claims or property damage alone.

The increase also does not usually appear straight away. GEICO sends new premium information about 30 days before renewal, and Farmers notes that a new accident can move you into a higher-priced tier at renewal. If your rate has not changed yet, that does not mean it will not.

How Much Does an Accident Raise Your Rate?

There isn’t one national average surcharge applied after an accident, as it varies between car insurance providers, and published estimates use different coverage levels and damage amounts. Some recent figures published by various sources can give an idea of what this increase may look like in practice:

• 45%: According to a 2026 report from MoneyGeek, the average can rise from $290 to $420.

• 61%: According to CarInsurance.com, the base annual rate for full coverage can rise from $2,578 to $4,153 after a vehicle receives damages above $2,000 (August 14th, 2026)

• 34%: According to Insurify, rates can go up from $97 to $130 a month, but this is liability-only (September 17th, 2026)

• 50%: The Zebra’s stated ceiling for an accident-related increase

• 48%: $954 more a year for full coverage, according to NerdWallet — still the figure it publishes today, though the analysis behind it dates from January 2024

• 45%: According to LendingTree, the average driver's full-coverage premium rises about 45% after an at-fault accident, based on an analysis of hundreds of thousands of quotes

Every one of those figures comes from a rate-comparison site. The carriers themselves publish far looser numbers. GEICO will only say rates “typically increase anywhere from 0% to 50% or more” after an at-fault accident. Liberty Mutual gives no percentage at all, saying only that claims “typically stay on your record for 3-5 years.” If your own quote lands outside the 34% to 61% span, that is why — the people setting the price never promised a range that tight.

The rule is simple. The bigger the claim and the more coverage you carry, the larger the potential surcharge. Liability-only policies have less premium to surcharge.

Injuries move it further again. On the same $2,578 base, CarInsurance.com puts an at-fault property damage claim under $2,000 at 55%, the same claim above $2,000 at 61%, and an at-fault accident involving bodily injury at 64%, or about $1,660 a year. Liberty Mutual describes the same pattern without numbers, saying serious injuries or extensive property damage lead to larger increases than minor fender benders. Those figures track the cost of the claim as much as the injury itself, and Farmers attributes the larger increase on an injury accident to the higher claim cost behind it.

Age is the other modifier the averages hide. AAA Club Alliance puts the average at 45% for an at-fault accident causing significant property damage, but notes that drivers under 20 see “some of the largest increases of all” — the fatal crash rate for 16- to 19-year-olds is more than three times that of drivers 20 and over, and pricing follows that. A household adding a teen driver to the policy after a claim is looking at a different number from the one in the table below.

You also shouldn’t judge the increase by one month alone. MoneyGeek estimates that one at-fault accident can add $7,825 in total over five years. With the risk of a staggering amount like this added on year by year, it’s definitely worth shopping around to make sure you’re avoiding this unnecessary cost.

Does Your Insurance Company Change How Much You Pay?

The same at-fault accident can raise your premium by 26% with one insurer, and 82% with another. That difference can matter more than the accident itself, making your choice of carrier critical after a claim.

These figures are taken from the data published at CarInsurance.com as of August 14th, 2026. The table above shows the average annual full coverage premiums before and after an at-fault accident with property damage over $2,000 for a 40-year-old male with a good record driving a Honda Accord LX.

Separate datasets reinforce this pattern. The Zebra puts State Farm at 27% and Nationwide at 64% as of August 25th, 2026, while AutoInsurance.com puts Auto-Owners lowest at 20% as of the 13th August 2026.

The spread of this dataset is too large to treat an accident surcharge as a fixed cost. A driver with the same crash details, same make and model of car, and the same driver profile could end up facing hundreds of dollars more or less each year, simply depending on which carrier they’re insured by. This means that shopping after an accident is far more important than just a simple routine price check or comparison; it can be the action that saves you hundreds. Don’t forget, you’re not stuck with your carrier’s surcharge, only the accident itself.

How Long Does the Increase Last?

In most states, an accident surcharge typically lasts between three and five years, but that period is usually determined by your insurance provider’s lookback window, rather than by any kind of state law.

The nearest thing to an institutional number comes from the Insurance Information Institute, quoted by Farmers, which puts a typical at-fault surcharge at about three years, varying by company and by state law. Farmers also separates two things that are easy to confuse: how long the accident sits on your driving record, and how long your insurer prices off it. In California, most collisions stay on the record for three years from the date of the incident; in Florida it is three to five, and longer for serious offenses.

The surcharge does fade over time, and doesn’t disappear all at once as many people expect. Insurify’s data shows that monthly quotes fell in increments. Beginning at $250 in the first year, they were reduced to $232 after one or two years, to $205 at two to three years, to $189 at three to five years, and then down to $173 at seven or more years.

There is a related question worth answering, because it is the one drivers actually ask once the three years are up: why is my premium still high after the accident came off my record? Two things outlive the surcharge. Base rates rise for everyone, so the policy you renew into was never going to be the policy you had before the crash. And an accident-free or good-driver discount is a separate line from the surcharge — losing it costs you whether or not the surcharge is still being applied, and it often takes longer to earn back than the surcharge takes to expire. If your rate hasn’t moved at the point you expected it to, that is the question to put to your insurer.

Because these costs keep changing, it’s more than worth shopping around to find a better deal each year if you’ve been in an accident.

Which States Limit How Long a Surcharge Can Last?

Many states leave the length of time and size of an accident surcharge to insurance companies, but there are a handful that stand out. The following states actually have laws that put limits on when an accident can affect your premium, or how long insurers can use it for.

• Massachusetts: The Safe Driver Insurance Plan uses a six-year experience period with a points system. The sixth year earns no surcharge points, effectively leaving five surchargeable years. Minor at-fault accidents are three points, and major ones are four, with each point adding 15% across four coverages for experienced drivers. An accident is only surchargeable when the driver is more than 50% at fault, and the claim exceeds $1,000.

• California: California has no regulated surcharge-duration cap, but insurers may not rate a renewal using a motor vehicle record older than 36 months. An accident can be chargeable at 51% or more fault and when damage exceeds $1,000.

• Pennsylvania: Surcharges are measured over three years and apply only when aggregate claim costs exceed $2,350. That threshold rose from $2,250 on July 1st, 2026, and is inflation-adjusted at least once every three years. Pennsylvania boasts one of the lowest published post-accident increases of any state, and its unusually high threshold may explain why.

• New York: New York has no blanket surcharge-duration rule, but accidents causing $2,000 or less in aggregate property damage cannot trigger a surcharge if the insured didn’t cause bodily injury or if they have a clean accident record. This doesn't conflict with AAA Club Alliance's statement, cited via the NY Department of Financial Services, that "New York allows insurers to consider an accident for three years" — that's the carrier lookback practice for accidents above the $2,000 threshold, not a statutory duration cap, and the statute text confirms it sets no such cap.

Where a state sits in law and where it sits on price are two different questions, and the second one has a wider spread than the first. WalletHub publishes a state-by-state table that runs from an average increase of $28 (3%) in Rhode Island to $735 (57%) in Michigan. Which state comes out lowest depends on whose dataset you use, so treat any single ranking — including the one above — as one reading rather than a settled fact.

For drivers located in other states, the absence of a statutory limit means that there may be no legal ceiling on how long an insurer can factor an at-fault accident into your premium. That means that your carrier’s surcharge rules, lookback period, and pricing model are especially important. This gives you a good reason to compare insurers in order to avoid high-risk insurance policies, rather than assume every company will treat the accident the same way.

Can a Not-at-Fault Accident Raise Your Rate?

Many people are not aware of this, but a not-at-fault accident can still raise your rates in most states. Progressive acknowledges that such accidents may increase rates in some states, while GEICO says not being at-fault does not guarantee immunity from rate changes.

There is a number attached to that. WalletHub puts the average increase after a not-at-fault accident at about 4% — small next to the 34% to 61% an at-fault claim brings, but not the zero most drivers assume they are entitled to.

Here are some of the states that restrict rate increases after a not-at-fault accident:

Aside from these, there are also some specific protected scenarios. Pennsylvania protects accidents where you were lawfully parked; rear-ended without a moving-violation conviction; when the other driver was convicted, and you weren’t; and when the driver fled, and you reported it within 24 hours.

If you find yourself in one of these situations and your rate still rises, be sure to enquire with your insurance provider why this change has taken place before accepting the increase.

How to Lower Your Car Insurance After an Accident

A surcharge is not a fixed cost you have to absorb for three to five years. Several things are within your control, and they are not equally powerful — the first one moves the number far more than the rest combined.

Shop for a New Policy Immediately

The single largest variable in what an accident costs you is not the accident. It's which company is pricing it. CarInsurance.com puts the same at-fault claim at a 26% increase with State Farm and 82% with Farmers, with Travelers at 44% and GEICO at 79% in between (August 14th, 2026). The Zebra reads the spread differently — State Farm at 27%, Nationwide at 64% — but both datasets say the same thing: most of your surcharge is a function of who you happened to be insured with on the day of the crash. Your accident follows you. Your insurer's surcharge doesn't. A new carrier rates the accident under its own filed rules, its own lookback window and its own thresholds, and those differ enough to put the same driver, same car and same claim hundreds of dollars apart.

Don't wait for your renewal notice to start. The surcharge is already priced into the quote you'd get today, so you can compare now rather than after another six or twelve months of paying it. Then re-quote every year while the surcharge fades: Insurify's data shows average monthly quotes stepping down from $250 in the first year to $232 at one to two years, $205 at two to three, $189 at three to five and $173 at seven or more. Each of those steps is a fresh opportunity for a different carrier to come out cheapest. When you compare, hold the coverage limits and deductibles identical — a cheaper quote isn't cheaper if it's buying you less.

The stakes justify the effort. MoneyGeek estimates that a single at-fault accident adds about $7,825 over five years, so a carrier switch that halves the surcharge is worth thousands, not hundreds.

Raise Your Deductible

Raising your deductible lowers your premium immediately, and after an accident that reduction stacks on top of everything else you're doing. The Insurance Information Institute estimates that going from a $200 to a $500 deductible cuts collision and comprehensive costs by 15% to 30%, and a $1,000 deductible can save 40% or more.

It also does something less obvious: it raises the bar at which claiming makes sense at all. Because a surcharge runs three to five years, a claim that nets you a few hundred dollars once can cost more than that over the life of the increase. A higher deductible filters out exactly the small claims that aren't worth the surcharge they trigger — and several states already draw that line for you, with Progressive not charging for a first claim of $500 or less in most states and New York barring a surcharge where aggregate property damage is $2,000 or less.

The limit is affordability, not arithmetic. Only raise a deductible to a figure you could cover out of pocket tomorrow — the savings aren't worth a number you can't actually produce on the day you need it.

Does a Defensive Driving Course Lower Your Insurance?

It can, but the conditions matter more here than with anything else on this list.

The usual figure is 10%. GEICO lists a maximum of 10% in most states where it offers the discount, rising to 15% in Arkansas and Delaware and 12% in Minnesota, and falling to 5% in California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. It is not offered at all in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, or Vermont.

Two conditions do most of the work. The first is age: on GEICO's own list, thirty-three states set a minimum age of 50, and Indiana and Virginia set 55. Florida's and Pennsylvania's state requirements are written for drivers 55 and over. If you are under 50, this is a discount you probably cannot claim where you live. The second is your record, and it is the catch that matters most here. In Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, and Tennessee, GEICO's stated condition is that you have not been involved in an at-fault accident or convicted of a traffic violation. The accident that sent you looking for the discount is the thing that disqualifies you from it.

New York shows clearly what the discount does and does not do. The state requires insurers to give a reduction for an approved course, and the DMV's Point and Insurance Reduction Program sets it at a minimum 10% off the base rate for three years, repeatable every 36 months. But the DMV is explicit that the reduction does not prevent premium increases due to violations or crashes. It comes off your base rate, and the surcharge still lands on top of it. The same page notes that DMV points and insurance company points are separate systems, so reducing one does nothing to the other.

Treat it as a discount worth having if you qualify, rather than a way to undo a surcharge.

Does Bundling Lower Your Rate After an Accident?

Bundling your auto policy with home or renters cover is the one discount here that an accident does not take away from you.

That is worth saying plainly, because most discounts do carry a record condition. Farmers' own discount page shows the contrast: its safe driver discount requires zero chargeable accidents for three years, its loyalty discount allows no more than one in the previous twelve months, and its five-year accident-free discount requires none in sixty months. The bundling discount carries no such condition, and the page simply says you can save 10% or more by bundling home and auto. Liberty Mutual lists bundling among the things to do after an accident, alongside raising your deductible and reviewing your policy for discounts you are not using.

The published figures for how much it saves disagree, which is a familiar problem on this topic. Insurance.com puts the average auto and home bundle saving at 14%, Farmers says 10% or more, and Nationwide publishes a dollar figure rather than a percentage.

The thing to check is whether the bundle actually wins. Insurance.com, which publishes that 14% average, also says bundling is not always the cheapest route, and gives worked examples: a Progressive bundle averaging $4,568 against Progressive auto with Mercury home at $3,386, a difference of $1,182 a year, and a COUNTRY Financial bundle at $4,386 against COUNTRY auto with Allstate home at $3,778, a difference of $608. The discount is real, but it is a percentage off one company's prices, and a cheaper company without it can still come out ahead. Compare the final number, not the discount.

Is Accident Forgiveness Worth It?

In most cases, accident forgiveness is generally worth it. Most accident forgiveness add-ons cost around $15 to $60 per year. This contrasts with an at-fault increase of about $845 a year (or $2,535 across three years). On these numbers, forgiveness can pay for itself many times over if you ever need to use it. That holds if the price you pay is the one above, and if you eventually use it. NerdWallet puts the cost much higher, at 2% to 9% of the premium among carriers that charge for it. On a $2,500 full-coverage policy that is $50 to $225 every year, whether or not you ever crash, against a savings you can only collect once. Over five or six clean years, the add-on can quietly cost more than the surcharge it was bought to prevent, and some drivers give up a good-driver discount — usually worth 10% to 40% — to keep it. The two figures don’t reconcile, so the honest version is this: earned, free forgiveness is close to a straight win, and the paid add-on is a bet on your own odds. Check what your carrier is actually charging as a percentage of your premium before deciding.

Insurance providers also provide accident forgiveness add-ons in a range of circumstances. One of these is that accident forgiveness is given for free, provided the driver earned it. Several insurance companies offer this, each with their own rules:

• Progressive: Progressive forgives a first claim of $500 or less automatically for new customers in most states, while larger accidents generally require five years with the company and a clean record to be forgiven.

• GEICO: At GEICO, claim forgiveness is offered to customers from the age of 21 upwards, with five accident-free years.

• Liberty Mutual: Requires five clean years with any insurance carrier.

• USAA: Like Liberty Mutual, USAA also requires five clean years with an insurance carrier.

• Erie: Requires three clean years with the company and forgives all at-fault accidents after 15 years in certain states.

• Allstate: Not sold on its own. Forgiveness comes bundled into Allstate’s higher-tier plans — after three claim-free years on the Gold plan, and from day one on Platinum (The Zebra, July 27th, 2026).

Some insurance companies offer the opportunity to buy an accident forgiveness add-on. Providers who offer this include Nationwide, Travelers, Farmers, and Auto-Owners.

Other insurance companies don’t offer any accident forgiveness at all, but they may use a telematics program. For example, State Farm’s Drive Safe & Save program prices rates based on your mileage and driving behavior. It’s worth noting that alongside this, State Farm also has the smallest post-accident increase in the data we discussed above.

Accident forgiveness add-on programs also vary by state. GEICO excludes California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, while Liberty Mutual, Travelers, and Allstate exclude California. California is not four separate company decisions, though: the state bans accident forgiveness outright. Under Proposition 103, passed in 1988, paying in advance for protection against an accident you haven’t had counts as an excessive rate, so no carrier can sell it there at any price. Most providers use this add-on to forgive only one accident and forgiveness typically only resets after a certain period of time — with some carriers resetting after six months. These kinds of specifics should be thoroughly checked with your provider before you sign up for a policy and before you purchase an accident forgiveness add-on.

An accident doesn’t have to mean accepting a higher premium for the next five years. Your insurer can make a huge difference to what you pay, so be sure to browse as soon as your claim is settled, and compare rates again each year as the surcharge fades.

Want an easier way to find the best car insurance option for you after an accident? Here at SaveMax Auto, we can help you find the best potential savings and help keep your money in your pocket. Reach out to us today, and we can help you find the best car insurance provider to switch to after an accident.

FAQs About Insurance After an Accident