Auto insurance on new car
Auto insurance is a highly personalized item, so depending on your driving record and other factors, $600 a month for full coverage may be as good as you can get. Look at the premium for each category, and consider raising the deductible if you have some savings that could be used in the event that you have a claim. Also, you're not only buying insurance to cover the other person's damage and medical expenses, you're paying for insurance for your car.  Brand-new cars are more expensive to replace (and thus insure) than used cars. Leasing is effectively renting a car for a long period of time. While the payments are less, when the lease expires you're going to have to decide whether to give up the car or buying it, usually at a price much higher than market value.   I'm glad you discovered that the insurance would break your budget before it's too late.  My suggestion would be to look for a 1-2 year old car that's less expensive to buy and to insure. $600 a month is high, but may be the best you can do. When I moved from UK to Canada my first insurance quote was $3000 a year, but that was 20 years ago and I was older than 27. The rates go down substantially after you have had a local license for a few years. Best tips for minimising this:
"Yes, it is possible for you to refinance your existing auto loan, and so long as you can get the loan on more favorable terms (e.g.: lower interest rate), it is absolutely a smart thing to do. In fact, you would be well advised to do so as soon as possible if the car was a new car, if you refinance a NEW car soon enough you will likely still be able to get new car interest rates. Even if it is a pre-owned vehicle you shouldn't wait too long, since your car will only depreciate in value.  You will almost certainly get more favorable terms from any bank or credit union directly then you would when you go through the dealership, because the dealership is allowed to mark-up your interest rate several percentage points as profit for themselves. Your best bet would be to go to a local credit union, their rates tend to be most competitive since they are ""owned"" by their members." You're on the right track with buying clunkers, but letting your current cars get repossessed is a bad idea for the reasons you specified. First, find an insurance broker instead of an insurance agent. A broker works with dozens of companies, many of which you may not have heard of. He is in a better position to find you the best deal than you are because he is familiar with more insurance company products than you are. He doesn't charge you extra for this service. Second, ask your insurance broker if he can find any insurers offering discounts for persons who have passed a driver training course. Find an accredited course and determine pricing. If the savings exceed the cost of the course, take the course.  Third, if you have outstanding loans on your vehicles, pay them off and sell the cars. Replace them with vehicles you can purchase outright with cash. Make sure you have enough money to replace them again should another accident happen.   Once you have vehicles that are lein-free there is no longer a requirement by the lender for you to have insurance for the replacement value of the vehicle, which is what's killing your rates right now. Find out what the minimum legal requirement for auto insurance is in your state. In Canada, the minimum requirement is $100,000 liability. Anything else is either a sales job or a lender requirement. Getting your wife to insure her own vehicle may help, getting your insurance under her name may also be something to look into. Since you seem to have issues with people bumping into you and there have been no medical issues, $100,000 liability may be all you need. Note: Tactic #3 is not without risk. If you are in an at-fault accident, you will have to pay for any damages exceeding your insured limit out of your own pocket. Any damages to your own vehicle whether at-fault or not will have to be paid out of your own pocket. If you are sued for medical expenses incurred by other parties, you'll have to pay anything over and above your insured limit out of your own pocket.  If there is anything you are unclear about on your insurance policy, ask your agent/broker to explain until you do understand. Buying auto insurance without fully understanding what you are paying for is another risk. 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]. "It depends.  ""High net worth individuals"" is very subjective.   Lets say a person is worth 1.5 million.  High, but not super high.  For one, they should have an umbrella policy.  Until your net worth is above 300K, you really don't need an umbrella policy.  They should insure their home and cars, but should probably have high deductibles.  Health insurance is a must as a bad illness can wipe them out.  They should have long term care insurance when they reach age 60.   Now lets say a person is worth about 10 million.  They might be able to self insure basic transportation and probably don't need long term care insurance.  However, they may choose to carry the full coverage car insurance, or other lines, because it is a value.   In conclusion insurance needs change based on a person's net worth and income.  It is very hard to make a blanket statement without details of the makeup of one's net worth and how they earn their income. Having said all of that, a high net worth (HNW) individual may never be able to drop certain coverage.  Lets say that a HNW owns a 50K condo, 1K square foot condo.  Given that the outside structure is covered by the HOA the insurance on such a unit only covers the contents and liability.  The contents could easily be floated by the HNW individual, but not the liability.  It is probably a requirement, on their umbrella policy, that they carry the maximum liability protection on their vehicles and properties.  In the case above they would carry a policy for the purposes of liability protection. This could also be true of their dependents.  Say for example, their adult child receives some financial assistance from their parents (like college being paid for).  The HNW individuals should have their child cover the maximum liability on the auto policy. According to this site:  A person with a net worth of 1.5 million would be in the 90-95 percentile, a person with 10 million in the 99th. This article does a decent job of describing what constitutes a HNW person or household.  Namely 1 million in investable assets, which is of course a bit different then net worth." Generally, banks will report your loan to at least one (if not all three) credit bureaus - although that is not required by law. The interest you're paying, in addition to your insurance isn't justifiable for building credit. I would recommend paying the car off and then perhaps applying for a secure credit card if you are worried about being rejected. Of course, since you have very little credit, applying for an unsecured card and getting rejected won't hurt you in the long run. If you are rejected, you can always go for a secured credit card the second time.  As I mentioned in my comments, it's better to show 6 months of on-time payments than to have no payment history at all. So if your goal is to secure an apartment near campus, I'm sure you're already a step ahead of the other students. No one has said this specifically yet, but you're more likely to avoid the kinds of problems that concern you by choosing makes and models of vehicle that are known to be reliable.  Honda is well-known for the reliability of their cars, so definitely consider them. @MrChrister mentioned Consumer Reports--they are an excellent resource for buying new and/or used cars. @Natashska made a great point about dealers vs. private sellers.  To that point I'll add the following: Accidents and tickets more than 3 years old generally won't affect you.   I use an insurance broker who shops a bunch of different companies and buys me the best policy. (He gets a cut as a middle-man, but saves me more than going direct and gives great advice when I have a question.)   Since you haven't been only your own policy lately, it will cost you more than someone with a 3 year history with a perfect record, but if you shop around, you will find something at a fair price.   Also, your credit score often factors into the price you pay for car insurance also. "Your auto insurance should cover you driving any car, as well as anyone driving your car (on a temporary basis). In an accident, I suspect her insurance would be the primary insurer. Since she has her own car and insurance and only temporarily drives yours, I wouldn't include her as a ""driver""."