How to calculate car insurance quote
First you should understand the basics of how insurance companies make money: In a simple scenario, assume 1,000 have car insurance. Assume that on average, 100 people have accidents per year, and that each accident costs $10,000. So, we can expect total costs to be $1,000,000 per year. Some of those costs will be paid by the drivers, who have some sort of 'deductible'. That is - the insurance company will only cover costs after the driver has themself paid some initial amount [something like, the first $1,000 of repairs is paid by the driver]. So now the insurance company expects to have to pay out $900,000 in total claims this year. If they want to pay those claims (and also pay their administrative costs, and earn a profit), they might want to have $1,250,000 in revenue. Across 1,000 people, that would be $1,250 / year in insurance premiums. Of course, the big question for the insurance company is: how much will they really need to pay out in insurance claims each year? The better they can predict that number, the more profitable they can be [because they can charge a much more accurate amount, which can earn them new customers and gives them insurance {pun} that each new customer is actually profitable to them on average]. So the insurance company spends a lot of time and money trying to predict your likelihood of a car accident. They use a lot of metrics to do this. Some might be statistical hogwash that they charge you because they feel they can [if every insurance company charges you extra for driving a 2-door instead of a 4-door, then they all will], and some might be based in reality. So they attempt to correlate all of the items in your list, to see if any of those items indicates that you should be charged more (or less) for your insurance. This is equal parts art and science, and a lot of it comes down to how they market themselves. ie: if an insurance company gives a discount for being in college, is that because college drivers are better drivers, or is it because they want to increase the number of young customers they have, so they can keep those customers for life? Therefore how each metric factors into your calculation will be based on the company using it. It would basically be impossible to 'come up with' the same answer as the insurance company by having the information you provided, because of how heavily dependant that answer is on statistics + marketing. As for how your state matters - some states may have different accident rates, and different payout systems. For example - is Hawaii driving more dangerous because of all the tourists driving rented cars faster than they should? Is New York less expensive to insure because better public health care means less cost is borne by the insurance company in the event of an accident [I have no idea if either of these things are the case, they are purely for hypothetical discussion purposes].  In short, make sure you get quotes from multiple providers, and understand that it isn't just the cost that changes. Check changes in coverage and deductibles as well [ie: if one company charges you $100 / month when everyone else charges $200 / month - make sure that the cheaper company doesn't limit its coverage in ways that matter to you]. Does the Insurance value differ from state to state (for example I've a car in Hawaii and there is another car in Illinois with same model, make and same features), does the Insurance vary for both? Yes, quotes will vary based on where you live for various reasons, (propensity for accidents, value of cars, etc.), and state laws regarding required car insurance can vary. How is the insurance quote calculated? It's likely a proprietary formula that the insurance company will not disclose. If they did, they could be giving away a competitive advantage. However, like all insurance, the goal is to determine the probability of the insured having an accident, and the projected cost of such an accident.  That will be based on actuarial tables for each of the risk factors you mention. Former software developer at an insurance company here (not State Farm though). All of the above answers are accurate and address how the business analysts come up with factors on which to rate your quote. I wanted to chime in on the software side here; specifically, what goes into actually crunching those numbers to produce an end result. In my experience, business analysts provide the site developers with a spreadsheet of base rates and factors, which get imported into a database. When you calculate a quote, the site starts by taking your data, and finding the appropriate base rate to start with (usually based on vehicle type, quote type (personal/commercial/etc.) and garaging zip code for the US). The appropriate factors are then also pulled, and are typically either multiplicative or additive relative to the base rate. The most 'creative' operation I've seen other than add/multiply was a linear interpolation to get some kind of gradient value, usually based on the amount of coverage you selected. At this point, you could have upwards of twenty rating factors affecting your base rate: marriage status, MVR reports, SR-22; basically, anything you might've filled into your application. In the case of MVR reports specifically, we'd usually verify your input against an MVR providing service to check that you didn't omit any violations, but we wouldn't penalize for lying about it...we didn't get that creative :) Then we'd apply any fees and discounts before spitting out the final number. With all that said, these algorithms that companies apply to calculate quotes are confidential as far as I'm aware, insofar as they don't publish those steps anywhere for the public to access. The type of algorithm used could even vary based on the state you live in, or really just when the site code is arbitrarily updated to use a new rating system. Underwriters and agents might have access to company-specific rating tables, so they might have more insight at the company level.  In short, if there's an equation out there being used to calculate your rate, it's probably a huge string of multiplications with some base rate additions and linear interpolations peppered in, based on factors (and base rates) that aren't readily publicized. Your best bet is to not go through the site at all and talk to a State Farm agent about agency-specific practices if you're really curious about the numbers. Question 1: Yes Question 2: There is no simple formula. Car insurance is mostly Statistics, because you have so many millions of cases that the variance is really low. This also means that, because the cost can be estimated so precisely, it is difficult to make an offer better than the competitors. For that reason every insurance company makes there own, arbitrary, segmentation of the data which leads them identify low risk groups they can offer a bonus to. Common ones are type of car or and driving experience, but it could be anything that is not forbidden by anti-discrimination-laws. Also additional perks like towing insurance etc. may give them an opportunity do differentiate themselves or to make easy profit.  In fact it is a common tactic to offer prices that make close to no profit to fill up your book, then raise tariffs in then following years an make you profit with those who are to lazy to switch. "On top of the given answers, the type of referral will also factor in. When you're up for renewal and go to a comparison site (in the UK: CompareTheMarket, MoneySupermarket, Confused, GoCompare, ... ) and struggle accurately through all their lists of questions, you see that some of the data differs (e.g., not all the same jobs can be entered; if you have had an accident, not all ask whose fault it was and/or don't leave the option ""not yet resolved"" --possibly forcing you to guess which way it will be adjudicated,-- and/or what the total repair cost was).  So as these referrers feed slightly different data to roughly the same set of insurance providers, you will get slightly different quotes on the same providers. And expect your own provider to offer a slightly better quote than you'll get in reality for renewing: The referrer's (one-time) cut has to be still taken off, but they count it as a new client so somebody gets a bonus for that --- you they disregard as a captive client and give what boils down to a loyalty penalty. [Case in point: I had an unresolved car accident, resolved months later in my favour. With all honest data including unresolved claim and its cost and putting my 'accident-free years' factor at 0 instead of 7, my old provider quoted about 8% more than the previous year on comparison sites; but my renewal papers quoted me 290% more, upon telephone enquiry the promised to refund the difference if court found in my favour though they refused to give this in writing. So: No thanks!] Then the other set of referrals they get is from you directly going to their website asking for a quote. They know what type of link you've followed (banner, or google result, etc), they may know some info from your browser's cookies (time spent where) or other tracking service, and from your data they may guess how tech-savvy and shop-wise you are, and scale your offer accordingly. [Comparison-site shoppers are lumped together at a relatively high savvy-level, of course!]. Companies breaking down your data and their own in a particular way can find advantages and hence offer you better terms, as said in the main answer (this is like Arbitration in stock exchanges, ensuring a certain amount of sanity: if there's something to exploit, somebody will, and everybody will follow). It may be that they find a certain group of people maybe more accident-prone but cheaper to deal with (more flexible in repair-times, or easy to bully in accepting shared-fault when they weren't at fault), or they want a certain client (for women, for civil servants, for sporty drivers, for homeowners --- often for cross-selling other insurance services). Or they claim to want pensioners because the company can offer them 'a familiar voice' (same account manager always contacting them) while they're easier to bamboozle and less likely to shop around when offered a rubbish deal. Also, 100% straight comparison of competing offers isn't possible as the fine details of the T&Cs (terms & conditions) would differ, as well as various little pinpricks in the claims handling process.  And depreciation of a car, and various ways of dealing with it: You insure it for the buying prices, but two years later it's worth about 40% less on paper --- so in case of total loss, replacing like-for-like will cost you still at least 80% of the value for which you've been insuring it while they'll probably offer you the 100-40= 60%. Mostly because instead of your trusted car you have something unknown that may have hidden defects, or been mistreated and about to die. [Case in point: My 3-y-old dealer-bought car's gearbox died just outside the 6month warranty period, notwithstanding its ""150-item inspection you can rely on"". In the end the national brand agreed to refund the parts (15% of what I paid for the car) but not the labour (a few hours).] And any car model's value differs (in descending order) from its ""forecourt price"", ""private selling price"", ""part exchange price"", and ""auction price"". Depending on your ompanies may happily insure you for forecourt price (=what you paid to dealer) but then point out that the value of that car is the theoretical P/X value, i.e., the car without anybody's profit, far less than you've been paying for. [Conversely, if you crash it after insuring below market value, they can pay you your stupidly low figure.]"
Alright, IRS Publication 463: Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses Business and personal use. If you use your   car for both business and personal purposes,   you must divide your expenses between business   and personal use. You can divide your expense   based on the miles driven for each purpose. Example. You are a sales representative   for a clothing firm and drive your car 20,000   miles during the year: 12,000 miles for business   and 8,000 miles for personal use. You can   claim only 60% (12,000 ÷ 20,000) of the cost of   operating your car as a business expense Obviously nothing helpful in the code.  So I would use option 1, weight the maintenance-related mileage by the proportion of business use.  Although if you use your car for business a lot (and perhaps have a spouse with a car), an argument could be made for 3.  So I would consider my odds of being audited (even lower this year due to IRS budget cuts) and choose 1 or 3. And of course never throw anything away until you're room temperature. Credit scores, or at least components of them, can sometimes factor into how much you pay for car insurance. Source: Consumer Reports: How a Credit Score Increases your Premium The question states :- Our insurance company is offering a 30% discount on an $8200/year   commercial policy, if we install sprinklers. The insurance is paid in   two installments. ... This appears to mean six-monthly payments, so I'll make some comparison calculations using six-monthly loan repayments to keep things simple. Without the loan or sprinklers the insurance costs $4100 every six months. Using this loan payment formula, the calculation below shows, with the 30% discounted insurance, sprinkler maintenance and loan repayment, you would be paying $4655.28 every six months.  The discount required to break even is 43.5%.  I.e. rearranging the equation :-  Alternatively, with the discount of 30% you would break even if the six-monthly repayment amount was $1030.  Solving the payment equation for s gives an equation for the loan :-  So with the 30% discount you would break even if the loan required was $25989. Checking by back-calculating the periodic payment amount, a :-  Likewise we can keep the loan at $40000 and solve for t to find the break-even loan term :-  (Note, in this formula Log denotes the natural logarithm.)  Now we can set some values :-  So with break-even payments the $40000 loan is paid off in just under 65.5 years.  I.e. checking :-  This just beats the $4100 cost of proceeding without the sprinklers. Notes If your loan repayment was monthly it would reduce the cost of the loan slightly.  The periodic interest rate is calculated from the APR according to the method used in the EU and in some cases in US.  The calculations above were run using Mathematica. "An answer from a psychological viewpoint: money does not have a linear value to people. If you have $10.000, losing one dollar doesn't really matter. Losing all $10.000 is more than 10.000 times as bad. As a simple example of a non-linear function, let's use the ""square root"" function. Let's say that having $100 is ten times as good as having $1, and having $10000 is ten times as good as having $100.  Now, this means that an insurance may have a negative expectation when expressed in dollars (since the insurance company is making a profit), but the expected value still can be positive. Let's assume the premium is $150 and there's a 1% chance it will pay $10.000. Clearly in dollars the expected loss is $50. But in the value to you (using that same square root function), the premium is just -0.75 (sqrt(9850)-sqrt(10000) and the expected payout is 1 (sqrt(10000)*1%).  Intuitive: you won't notice the premium, if you're rich enough that you don't need the insurance. But once you do need the insurance, you could now be so poor that you appreciate the payout. As a side effect - this also shows that you want an insurance with a fairly high deductible. If a $10.000 loss is a risk you can bear, then you don't need insurance for losses in the order of $100. And that's even ignoring the fact that such small payouts have relatively high administrative costs for insurance companies, which is why the premium discount for high deductibles can be disproportionally high." Here's an example (US, not Canada) that shows up to a 30% increase for first 6 months after a >30 day lapse, but the best data will come from actual quotes from insurers. If you can do without driving for 2 years it's almost certainly worth dropping coverage and a car for that duration and paying an increased insurance rate for a spell after the lapse. I'm not sure how it works in Canada, but when living with my parents they could not exclude me from their insurance once I was a licensed driver. The insurance company considered me to have access to all vehicles, so my presence increased insurance rates. If you live with your mother, you'll have to check with your insurer to see how that works. Why do I need to put her information into these quotes?  Because you are getting your quote through a website instead of via a human being.  They likely programmed their system for the most likely scenarios. Doesn't her insurance cover her driving other people's cars? Yes, it should.  The big questions: for how much damage and is it liability only? My advice: don't be lazy, make the calls and find out the details.  Not everything can be answered on the internet. :) "&gt; Let's just say the insurance industry knows a lot more about underwriting than you do.  I'm sorry, but that is a meaningless statement. I work in insurance (first as a consultant, before 'retiring' to work in insurance distribution a few years ago), and I know that our industry frequently uses flawed or outdated methodologies due to the simple fact that insurance companies are very conservative and *very* resistant to change when it comes to changes to their core business. Unless you can show a direct, negative impact on the bottom line caused by the currently used method, you are unlikely to make any changes at all. In this case, if the entire US car insurance industry is using the same flawed system, it won't affect a single company if they also stick to it.   Until 1996, before the current system was introduced, insurance companies in Germany used to rate liability insurance for cars (almost) exclusively by engine power output. The industry had known that this method was fundamentally flawed since at least the late 1980s (comprehensive and partial coverage had been rated by the 'new' system for a few years at this point, which had also taken years to work out), but it took additional years of planning, negotiations and cooperation by the entire industry to change to the new system for liability.   So please, do not ever assume that ""the insurance companies are the experts, they know what they are doing!"". It might very well be the case that they are stuck with flawed/outdated systems simply because there is no sufficiently strong impulse to change what they do.   The current Tesla rate adjustment situation is a wonderful example of this - it apparantly took AAA *5 years* since the Model S first came out to realise that their initial estimate was wrong (it seems unlikely that the accident rate or repair costs have suddenly changed over the last year) and take appropriate actions. By late 2013, there were easily enough Teslas on the road (about 20,000) to get realiable data, yet nothing happened for nearly another 4 years." The best way to determine how much it will cost you is to call the insurance companies to get a quote from them for all the vehicles that you are planning on purchasing.  They will have a set amount depending on the year/make/model of the car combined with all your personal details like where you live, age, sex, occupation.  There are many online sites where you an get quotes as well, though talking with a rep may be the better option since you have a lot of questions.  If you are still living with your parents, you may be able to get a cheaper rate with that company as you might qualify for a multi-vehicle discount or combined property/vehicle insurance with them.  You might also be able to get a better rate since you were probably insured as a secondary driver with that company for several years. The cost of your auto insurance will depend also on what type of premium you choose.  For instance, it will be cheaper if you opt to only purchase 3rd party liability insurance (which only covers the cost of repairing the 3rd party's vehicle - ie the person you hit).  You may also get discounts for having certain (optional) safety equipment/options - like snow tires.   You will need to have your insurance purchased and sorted out before you are able to drive your car out of the dealership.   For a male with ~10 years driving experience and a clean record.  You could probably find something good for about $120 a month.  Of course, this depends on the many factors listed above. "Traditional insurance agent guy here.  There is no right answer in my opinion because your individual needs cannot be generalized.     There are a variety of factors that influence the price charged to you including but not limited to your past claims history, geographic location, credit profile, and the carrier's book of business itself.  This is just a small sampling, in reality their pricing calculations may be far more complicated.  The point is there is no one-size-fits all carrier.   My agency works with 15 different carriers.  Sometimes we can offer the best combination of coverage and cost to a prospective client that beats their existing coverage; other times we are nowhere close to being competitive.   The most important thing you can do is find a person/site/company you can trust and one that does not take advantage of you.  Insurance policies are complex and ""getting the best deal"" may oftentimes mean lessening coverage without realizing it.  So I would recommend using whatever service channel (online, phone, local agent) that's most convenient and consultative for you. And otherwise, shop around once every year or two to make sure you're still getting the most for your money." As for a formula, there isn't a simple one that you can apply to every type insurance. I'll try my best for a simple answer. Is the event devastating enough to change your lifestyle (looking at life necessities, not wants and nice to haves)? Is the event very likely to happen? Do you have enough emergency funds to cover such an event? Once that emergency fund is utilized, how long does it take you to restore that fund to be ready for the next event? If the event is devastating enough and is very likely to happen and you do not have the cash to cover the event, and/or it would take too long to restore that emergency fund, then it makes sense to consider insurance. Then you would have to examine if the benefit(s) outweight cost of the premium paid for the insurance. If it is pennies of premium for a dollar of benefit, then it makes sense. "Your wife is probably not going to be able to get a policy until all tests are complete and the doctors give her a clean bill of health.   A change in your health could make your premiums 50% to 75% higher than they would be if you applied for a policy in perfect health.  Health history is one of the biggest factor in calculating an LTCi premium.   The average age for purchasing a policy is 59.  Including all rate increases, the average long-term care insurance premium is $1,591 per year, based on my calculations from a 2015 National Association of Insurance Commissioners report with 2014 data. Because of new consumer protections designed to prevent rate increases, policies purchased today do cost more than older policies. In 2015, the average premium for a new policy was $2,532 per year, according to a LIMRA survey of most companies selling long-term care insurance. (Couples can get discounts as high as 30 percent when purchasing policies at the same time.) Do NOT work with just a local insurance agent who sells many different types of insurance.  ONLY work with an insurance agent who specializes in LTC insurance and that represents at least 7 of the top companies.  There are probably a couple of hundred agents in the country that specialize in LTC, are independent agents representing a lot of companies AND have a lot of experience.  Interview at least 3 different agents.  Get quotes from every agent you speak with and ask each of them their opinion about which policy you should get.  Go with the agent who seems the most knowledgeable and professional.  Do NOT buy LTC insurance from a ""financial advisor"".  They are usually limited to offering only a few companies (because of their broker/dealer arrangements) and they rarely understand LTC underwriting.  Do NOT buy LTC insurance from the company you get auto insurance or home insurance with.  And do NOT buy a policy just because your retirement association or alumni association recommends it.  SHOP around.  In your wife's case it would probably be wise to apply to more than one company at the same time in case one of them denies her application.   Here is an article I wrote for NextAvenue.org (a website owned by PBS) which answers some of the most common misconceptions about LTC insurance: An Insurance Agent’s Case for Buying Long-Term Care Insurance." Some proportion of the costs of a policy have little to no relationship to miles driven.  Think of costs of underwriting, and more especially sales/marketing/client acquisition costs (auto insurance isn't in the same league as non-term life insurance (where the commissions and other selling expenses typically exceed the first year's worth of premiums), but the funny TV ads and/or agent commissions aren't free), as well as general business overhead. Also, as noted by quid, some proportion of claim risk isn't correlated to distance covered (think theft, flood, fire, etc.). There are also differences in the miles that are likely to be driven by a non-commercial/vehicle-for-hire driver who puts 25k miles a year vs. one who puts 7k per year.  The former is generally going to be doing more driving at higher speeds on less-congested freeways while the latter will be doing more of their driving on crowded urban roads.  The former pattern generally has a lower expected value of claims both due to having fewer cars per road-mile, fewer intersections and driveways, and also having any given collision be more likely to result in a fatality (paralysis or other lifetime disability claims are generally going to exceed what the insurer would pay out on a fatality). Insurance rates are about assessing risk.  If the insurer has no way to reliably and easily assess usage, they will not reduce the premiums.  Many companies are providing tracking devices that connect to the OBD-II port. This not only tracks actual miles driven, but can typically track aggressive driving, time of day, length of trips, and other information. Unless you are using this kind of device to give the insurer actionable feedback on your driving habits, do not expect any discounts for mileage or usage. The problem you'll have is that premium income is a vague term so you have to figure out what they mean by a) premium and b) income. Gross or net of reinsurance and acquisition  costs? Written or earned basis?  Combined ratios are also a pig, very commonly they are loss ratio + expense ratio --- but of course loss ratio is losses incurred / premium earned while expense ratio is expenses paid / premium written so it's a self-inconsistent measure. And then there's investment income, and then there's reserve releases... Real Estate potentially has two components of profit, the increase in value, and the ongoing returns, similar to a stock appreciating and its dividends.   It's possible to buy both badly, and in the case of stocks, there are studies that show the typical investor lags the market by many percent.  Real estate is not a homogeneous asset class. A $200K house renting for $1,000 is a far different investment than a $100K 3 family renting for $2,000 total rents. Both exist depending on the part of the country you are in.  If you simply divide the price to the rent you get either 16.7X or 4.2X. This is an oversimplification, and of course, interest rates will push these numbers in one direction or another. It's safe to say that at any given time, the ratio can help determine if home prices are too high, a bargain, or somewhere in between.  As one article suggests, the median price tracks inflation pretty closely. And I'd add, that median home prices would track median income long term.  To circle back, yes, real estate can be a good investment if you buy right, find good tenants, and are willing to put in the time.  Note: Buying to rent and buying to live in are not always the same economic decision. The home buyer will very often buy a larger house than they should, and turn their own 'profit' into a loss. e.g. A buyer who would otherwise be advised to buy the $150K house instead of renting is talked into a bigger house by the real estate agent, the bank, the spouse. The extra cost of the $225K house is the 1/3 more cost of repair, utilities, interest, etc. It's identical to needing a 1000 sq ft apartment, but grabbing one that's 1500 sq ft for the view.