Electric car insurance costs 42% more than gas car insurance, and the gap reaches 54% in Massachusetts

Why electric car insurance costs more than gas car insurance

Electric car insurance costs more than gas car insurance almost everywhere in the country, an analysis by Insurify of more than 235,000,000 insurance rate quotes finds. The average electric car costs 3,159 dollars a year to insure across all model years, against 2,218 dollars for the average gas car, a gap of 42%. The difference between those 2 averages comes to 941 dollars a year, a figure calculated for this article rather than stated directly in the report.

The gap narrows for newer cars. An electric car from the 2024 model year or later costs 18% more to insure than a comparable new gas car, a gap of 501 dollars a year. Rates for those newer electric cars fell 11.1% over the last year, faster than the 7.7% drop for newer gas cars, so the gap is closing as electric cars age into the fleet.

The gap depends on where the owner lives

How much more electric car insurance costs depends heavily on the state. In Massachusetts, the widest gap Insurify found, an electric car costs 3,560 dollars a year to insure against 2,318 dollars for a gas car, a 54% gap. New York shows a 45% gap and Rhode Island a 39% gap. In Montana, West Virginia and Nebraska, Insurify found electric cars cost slightly less to insure than gas cars, a small reversal of the national pattern.

When your car needs a specialist and the nearest qualified shop has a three-week wait, that's not just an inconvenience, it shows up in your premium.

Daniel Lucas, senior carrier partnerships manager at Insurify. Source 1.

A crash costs more to fix on a battery electric car

Part of the gap comes from what a crash costs to fix. Mitchell, a company that aggregates auto insurance repair claims, found the average repairable claim on a battery electric car cost 5,684 dollars in the second quarter of 2026, 729 dollars more than the 4,955 dollars average for a gas car, a gap Mitchell describes as the smallest it has recorded between the 2. Plug in hybrid cars and mild hybrid cars cost about the same to repair as gas cars, 5,022 dollars and 5,033 dollars.

Ryan Mandell, vice president of strategy and market intelligence at Mitchell, said battery electric cars rely more on new parts made by the manufacturer than gas cars do, and tend to get more parts replaced instead of repaired.

BEVs are more dependent on OEM replacement parts than ICE alternatives and typically have fewer parts repaired versus replaced.

Ryan Mandell, vice president of strategy and market intelligence at Mitchell. Source 3.

The battery itself is the most expensive part to replace

The battery itself is a big factor. Progressive, a named insurer, states it can cost up to 15,500 dollars to replace the highest capacity Tesla battery pack, a 100 kilowatt hour pack, a unit that measures how much energy a battery holds, and 5,999 dollars to replace a smaller 75 kilowatt hour pack. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a group of state regulators, states the battery can represent up to 50% of an electric car price tag. Progressive names 3 more reasons for higher premiums, fewer technicians trained to work on electric cars, difficulty assessing battery damage after a crash, and electric cars sometimes declared a total loss, written off rather than repaired, after a crash that would count as minor on a gas car. Progressive states plainly it offers no discount for owning an electric car.

The most expensive electric models to insure

3 electric models average more than 4,500 dollars a year to insure, Insurify found, the Mercedes Benz EQS Sedan at 4,703 dollars, the Tesla Model S at 4,558 dollars and the BMW i5 at 4,554 dollars.