By the Lapera Insurance Team · Reviewed by Joe Lapera, Licensed Illinois Insurance Agent (IL Lic #100722394)
Here is the uncomfortable answer nobody leads with: on the most reliable measure available, Illinois car insurance is not expensive. It is below the national average and has been for years. What Illinois had was one of the steepest increases in the country, which is a completely different problem and the one you are actually feeling. This is what moved, why it moved, what the new state law does about it, and what actually brings a premium down.
Illinois auto insurance costs less than the national average, at $1,153 per insured vehicle in 2023 against $1,282 nationwide, but Illinois drivers absorbed an average 18% increase during 2024, one of the steepest in the country. The increase came from repair costs, claim severity, severe weather losses and a 16.3% uninsured driver rate. Until August 2026, Illinois was one of only two states with no process to challenge a rate increase. That changes July 1, 2027.
Almost every article answering this question starts by agreeing with the premise. We are not going to, because the data does not support it and you deserve the real explanation rather than a flattering one. Illinois is a below-average-cost state that went through an above-average-speed increase. Understanding that distinction tells you something useful: the problem is not that Illinois is a bad place to insure a car, it is that the price moved faster than anyone budgeted for, and there was no mechanism in state law to make anyone explain why.
Is Car Insurance Actually Expensive in Illinois?
TL;DR: No, not by the measure that tracks what drivers actually pay, though the published figures range from about $1,150 to over $2,000 depending on what is being counted.
The most defensible number comes from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which measures average expenditure per insured vehicle across policies actually in force. On that measure, Illinois averaged $1,153.05 in 2023 against a countrywide average of $1,281.60 (NAIC 2023 Auto Insurance Database Average Premium Supplement, published June 2025). Illinois has sat below the national average for years.
Then you read another site and it says Illinois drivers pay $1,855, or $1,575, or $2,000. Those are not errors. They are answers to a different question.
| Published figure | Source and year | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| $1,153 per vehicle | NAIC, 2023 data | Actual expenditure across all policies in force, including liability-only policies on older cars |
| About $1,575 full coverage | CoverageAdvisor, 2026 | Quoted full-coverage premiums on a modeled driver profile |
| $750 liability only | CoverageAdvisor, 2026 | Quoted minimum-coverage premiums, same modeled profile |
| $1,855 in December 2025 | Insurify tracking | Quoted rates on a modeled profile, down from $2,028 in January 2025 |
A figure built from fresh full-coverage quotes on a newer car will always land well above a figure built from every policy in force, because a large share of real Illinois policies are liability-only on paid-off vehicles. If you drive a five-year-old financed SUV in a dense ZIP code, the $1,153 figure has almost nothing to do with you. That is not the number being wrong, it is the number answering a question about the state rather than about your driveway.
Lapera Insurance Agency is a Farmers Insurance agency at 530 Barron Blvd in Grayslake, Illinois. Our team has been writing Illinois auto policies since 2007, with over 40 years of combined experience, and we have spent the last two years explaining renewal increases to people who did nothing wrong. Every guide on this site is reviewed by a licensed Illinois agent before it publishes.
Then Why Does It Feel So Much Worse Than That?
TL;DR: Because you do not experience the level, you experience the change, and Illinois had one of the sharpest single-year changes in the country.
According to the Illinois Secretary of State's office, Illinois drivers experienced an average 18% increase in auto insurance premiums during 2024, described by that office as one of the steepest increases in the nation (Illinois Secretary of State). A household paying $1,400 went to roughly $1,650 in a single renewal cycle without changing anything about how it drives.
There is a genuinely encouraging second half to this. Multiple rate trackers show Illinois auto premiums flattening or declining through 2025 and into 2026, with several carriers filing flat changes or small decreases. The sharp part appears to be behind us. That is cold comfort if your renewal is still $400 higher than it was in 2023, because rate decreases come off the new, higher baseline rather than the old one.
If a carrier files a 3% statewide decrease and your vehicle aged into a different rating tier, a teen driver hit the policy, or you moved ZIP codes, your personal renewal can still be higher. The statewide filing is the baseline; your own rating factors move you off it. Ask which of the two moved. Any service rep can tell you.
What Actually Drove the Increase?
TL;DR: Cars got more expensive to repair, injuries got more expensive to settle, and too many of the people you share the road with have no insurance.
- Repair cost, not car price. A bumper with parking sensors, a windshield with a camera that needs recalibration, and an aluminum body panel all cost multiples of what their 2015 equivalents cost. The same low-speed collision now generates a much bigger estimate.
- Labor and cycle time. Body shop labor rates rose and qualified technicians are scarce, which raises both the repair bill and the rental car bill attached to it.
- Claim severity over frequency. Illinois is not having dramatically more crashes. It is having crashes that cost dramatically more to settle, on both the vehicle side and the injury side.
- Medical and litigation costs. Injury claims settle higher and take longer than they did five years ago, and that expense sits inside everyone's rate.
- Severe weather. Hail, wind and flooding produce comprehensive claims at scale across Illinois, and comprehensive losses are priced into the whole book.
- Uninsured drivers. Every uninsured driver on the road shifts cost onto the uninsured motorist coverage that insured drivers pay for.
That last one is worth a number. Insurance Research Council estimates put 16.3% of Illinois drivers uninsured in 2022, roughly one in six, ranking Illinois 13th highest in the country (IRC data published by the Insurance Information Institute). You will see other figures quoted, often around 15% with a different national rank, because sources use different data years. Either way, the practical meaning is the same: a meaningful share of the cars around you cannot pay for what they hit, and your uninsured motorist coverage is what stands between you and that bill.
Weather is not a side note here either. Illinois recorded 14,426 crashes involving deer in 2024 alone (IDOT 2024 Illinois Crash Facts), and those are comprehensive claims spread across every policy in the state.
Why Did My Rate Go Up With No Ticket and No Accident?
TL;DR: Because you are priced as part of a group of similar drivers, and the group got more expensive even if you did not.
Your premium is not a bill for your own claims. It is your share of the expected cost across every driver the carrier insures who resembles you on the rating factors: your ZIP code, your vehicle, your age band, your coverage selections. When repair costs rise statewide, that entire group reprices, and a clean record does not exempt you from it. It only determines where you sit within the group.
Statewide rate filing
The carrier's approved change for Illinois. Moves everyone. Not personal and not negotiable.
Vehicle aging into a tier
Repair cost data updates. A model that was cheap to fix at three years old may not be at six.
ZIP code loss experience
Theft, claim frequency and repair costs are tracked at a local level and revised.
Discounts expiring
A good student who graduated, a paid-in-full credit that lapsed, a telematics discount that ended its term.
Household changes
A driver added, a driver aging in or out of a band, or a garaging address change.
Credit-based insurance score
Legal in Illinois as one rating factor. A change in your credit report can move a renewal with no claims at all.
Can Illinois Insurers Still Use Credit, Age and ZIP Code?
TL;DR: Yes, and the 2026 reform law added rate oversight without banning any of the non-driving rating factors people most object to.
This is where a lot of what is circulating online is simply wrong, so be careful what you read. Illinois permits insurers to use a credit-based insurance score as one rating factor under the Use of Credit Information in Personal Insurance Act (215 ILCS 157). Age, ZIP code, marital status and vehicle type all remain legal rating factors as well. Senate Bill 714 did not change that.
What the reform effort did do was make non-driving factors the center of a public argument. The Secretary of State's Driving Change campaign collected accounts from more than 2,000 Illinois drivers describing increases tied to where they live and how old they are rather than how they drive (Illinois Secretary of State), and that record is what shaped the bill. Separate proposals to restrict specific factors have been introduced in the General Assembly and remain under debate. None of them is law today.
The Act limits how credit information can be used and provides for re-rating on a current report in most circumstances. If your credit has materially improved since the policy was written, ask your carrier to re-run it. It is not automatic, it costs nothing to request, and it is one of the few rating factors you can actually change.
What Did Senate Bill 714 Change, and When?
TL;DR: It gives the Department of Insurance power to reject unfair auto rates and requires 30 days' notice before a large increase, starting July 1, 2027.
Governor Pritzker signed Senate Bill 714 on August 4, 2026, alongside House Bill 4273 covering homeowners insurance (Governor's office). Before that signing, Illinois was one of only two states, with Wyoming, that did not exercise regulatory control over insurance rates. Illinois operated a use-and-file system: a carrier could put a rate into effect and file it afterward, and the Department of Insurance had no authority to say no.
| What SB 714 does | Detail | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Rate review authority | The Department of Insurance can find a filing excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory and notify the insurer within 40 days, which may request a hearing | Effective July 1, 2027 |
| Advance notice | Auto insurers must give at least 30 days' notice before raising a renewal premium by more than 10% | Effective July 1, 2027 |
| No out-of-state cost shifting | Insurers cannot pass catastrophe losses from other states onto Illinois drivers | Effective July 1, 2027 |
| Defensive driving modernization | Aligns in-person National Safety Council course requirements with online standards | Effective July 1, 2027 |
| Changes required coverage limits | It does not. Illinois minimums remain 25/50/20 with mandatory uninsured motorist coverage | No change |
| Lowers your current premium | It does not. Nothing in the law reduces or reverses an existing rate | No |
The two rows at the bottom matter more than the four above them, because both have been widely misreported. SB 714 is a rate-oversight law. It does not raise the state minimum limits, it does not change how fault is decided after a crash, and it does not refund anyone. If you carry 25/50/20 today, you are still carrying 25/50/20 in 2027, and it is still not enough coverage for a serious injury claim.
Two Illinois renewals arrive the same week. Illustrative figures: the first is up 6%, and the carrier confirms the statewide filing was 5.5%, so essentially the whole increase is market-wide and shopping it will mostly find the same thing elsewhere. The second is up 31%, and it turns out a 17-year-old was added at the last renewal and a good-student discount was never applied. Only one of those two is fixable, and it is not the one people usually call about. Figures are illustrative and are not a quote or a rate representation.
What Actually Lowers an Illinois Auto Premium?
TL;DR: Bundling, deductible tuning, telematics for the right driver, and claiming the discounts already sitting on the table.
Bundle home, renters or condo
Consistently the largest single discount available, and it reduces both policies rather than one.
Tune the deductible
Moving collision from $500 to $1,000 is usually the biggest lever that does not reduce what you are covered for. Only if you can write that check tomorrow.
Telematics, for the right driver
Programs that price on actual driving reward low mileage and gentle braking. Excellent for retirees and short commutes, often a poor trade for heavy highway drivers.
Good student and driver training
Routinely missed on policies with drivers aged 16 to 25. Worth asking about every single renewal.
Ask for a credit re-rate
If your credit improved since the policy was issued, request it. Free to ask, and it is one of the few factors you control.
Annual review
Cars depreciate out of needing collision, teens age out of surcharges, records clear at three to five years. Last year's policy is rarely this year's best fit.
What we will not suggest: dropping to state minimum limits, cutting uninsured motorist coverage below your liability limits, or letting a policy lapse to save a month. In a state where roughly one in six drivers is uninsured, the uninsured motorist line is the last one you should be trimming, and a lapse in Illinois can cost you the registration on top of the rate.
For what Illinois actually requires and what each coverage does, see the Illinois auto insurance guide. Home renewals are moving for related reasons, covered in why Illinois home insurance rates are going up. If a filing or a lapse is the issue, our SR-22 page walks that process.
The Bottom Line
Illinois is a below-average-cost state that went through an above-average-speed increase, and the second fact is the one you feel. Repair costs, claim severity, weather losses and a one-in-six uninsured rate did most of the work. The increases have flattened, but they flattened at a higher baseline, which is why a 3% decrease can still arrive looking like a bill you do not recognize.
As of July 1, 2027 you will get 30 days' notice before a double-digit jump and the Department of Insurance will be able to make a carrier justify it. Until then, the levers are yours: the deductible, the discounts, the bundle and an honest look at whether the limits match what you are protecting. Send us the declarations page and we will tell you which of those is actually on the table.
Related Questions
Is car insurance more expensive in Illinois than other states?
No. Illinois averaged $1,153 per insured vehicle in 2023 against a national average of $1,282, according to the NAIC's 2023 Auto Insurance Database Average Premium Supplement. Illinois has been below the national average for years. What set Illinois apart was the speed of the increase, averaging about 18% during 2024.
Why did my Illinois car insurance go up without an accident or ticket?
Because auto rates are set across a group of similar drivers rather than on your record alone. A statewide rate filing moves the baseline for everyone in your rating group, and your vehicle aging into a different repair-cost tier, a discount expiring, a household change or a shift in your credit-based insurance score can all move your premium with a clean driving record.
Does Senate Bill 714 lower car insurance rates in Illinois?
No. SB 714 creates a rate review process, requires 30 days' notice before a renewal increase above 10%, and bars insurers from passing out-of-state catastrophe losses to Illinois drivers. It does not reduce or reverse any existing rate. Governor Pritzker signed it August 4, 2026, and the core provisions take effect July 1, 2027.
Can Illinois insurers use your credit score to set auto rates?
Yes. Illinois permits a credit-based insurance score as one rating factor under the Use of Credit Information in Personal Insurance Act, 215 ILCS 157. The 2026 reform law did not change this. The Act does limit how credit information is used and generally allows for re-rating on a current report, so it is worth asking your carrier to re-run it if your credit has improved.
How many uninsured drivers are there in Illinois?
Insurance Research Council estimates put 16.3% of Illinois drivers uninsured in 2022, roughly one in six, ranking Illinois 13th highest nationally. Other published figures differ slightly because sources use different data years. This is one reason Illinois requires uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage on every auto policy.
Are Illinois car insurance rates going down in 2026?
Rate trackers show Illinois auto premiums flattening through 2025 and into 2026, with several carriers filing flat changes or small decreases after the sharp increases of 2023 and 2024. A statewide decrease comes off the new higher baseline, though, so an individual renewal can still be higher than it was two years ago.
Last reviewed September 2026 by Joe Lapera, Licensed Illinois Insurance Agent (IL Lic #100722394). Figures verified against the sources linked above on that date.