The Best Auto Insurance in Nebraska of 2024

USAA is a membership-based company that is only available to current and former military members, their spouses, and their children. It offers car insurance that’s tailored for military members specifically, with discounts for people that are deployed or storing their vehicles on military installations. Among our top picks, it has the lowest rates in Nebraska for most drivers.

Military Discounts

Deploying is complicated. Aside from leaving your family, you’re also leaving your home and your vehicle, but why pay the same amount of insurance premiums for a car you don’t drive?

Fortunately, USAA offers deployed military members Nebraska car insurance discounts of up to 60 percent for storing their cars. For cars stored on military installations, the savings is up to 15 percent off of comprehensive coverage, which covers non-collision events. You could even earn a discount for driving fewer miles based on your total annual mileage, or for living on a military base.

Overall, whether you opt for full or minimum coverage, USAA’s rates are some of the cheapest in Nebraska:

Safe Driving Program

Usage-based insurance (UBI) gives safe drivers discounts for their safe driving behaviors, usually measured through an app or Bluetooth beacon. With USAA, all you have to do is download the USAA SafePilot app and start tracking your driving to get up to 30 percent off. The app will track your harsh braking, distracted driving, and mileage to give you a driving score. The higher the score, the higher the discount.

Insurance for Multiple Types of Vehicles

Aside from car insurance, USAA offers other types of insurance such as:

• ATV insurance
• Aviation insurance
• Bicycle and e-bike insurance
• Boat insurance
• Classic and collector car insurance
• Motorcycle insurance
• Personal watercraft insurance
• RV and motorhome insurance

Whether you drive a minivan or a mobile home, USAA has insurance that will cover you.

After USAA, which is only available to members, Nationwide has the next-cheapest rates for full coverage in Nebraska among our top picks. Nationwide offers multiple ways for good drivers to save, from having a clean driving record for at least five years prior, to maintaining accident-free status, to enrolling in its usage-based insurance program, SmartRide. Additionally, Nationwide has local agents throughout the state, for that personal touch.

Rewards for Safe Drivers

Nationwide rewards safe drivers in three ways:

• Safe driver discount: Before you’ve even enrolled with Nationwide, the company will take a look at your driving record for the past five years. If you haven’t caused any accidents within that time, you could get a discount.
• Accident-free discount: You could also get an additional 10 percent off simply for keeping your driving record accident-free.
• SmartRide discount: Similar to USAA’s SafePilot program, Nationwide’s SmartRide gives you discounts for safe driving, measuring your mileage, hard braking, fast acceleration, and nighttime driving. Not only will you get a 10 percent discount just for signing up, but you could save an additional 40 percent for driving safely, and getting started is as easy as downloading the SmartRide app.

Senior Defensive Driving Discounts

As of July 2022, there were 866,675 adults ages 55 and over living in Nebraska, making up 44 percent of the state’s population.² With Nationwide, these drivers can save by completing a state-approved defensive driving course. This option is available to people who have not caused any accidents in the past 35 months, so if you’re a safe, senior driver, you might as well save up to 5 percent on insurance and learn about traffic laws, defensive driving techniques, and environmental hazards, to name a few lessons.

Local Agents

Not every insurance company has local car insurance agents. Some only allow you to get a quote, purchase a policy, and maintain your policy online. However, that’s not the case with Nationwide, which has local agents in Omaha, Lincoln, Bellevue, Grand Island, Kearney, Fremont, Hastings, Norfolk, North Platte, and Columbus. These local agents can ensure that you get all the discounts that you’re eligible for, and all the coverages you need, for a price you can afford. Along with Travelers, Nationwide is a good pick for drivers who want the customer experience of working with an agent.

In Nebraska, nearly 69 percent of its residents own homes, according to the latest U.S. Census data from the first quarter of 2024.³ That being said, you don’t need to own your home to save with Liberty Mutual.

Home and Auto Bundles

Oftentimes, home and auto bundle discounts are only limited to homeowners, which makes up about seven in 10 Nebraskans. But what about the other three in 10? Liberty Mutual hasn’t forgotten about them. It offers drivers discounts when they bundle their auto insurance not only with homeowners insurance, but also with renters and condo insurance. For new customers who saved with Liberty Mutual when they switched to the company between October 2021 and September 2022, that average savings was over $950.

Offers Gap Insurance With Add-Ons

Liberty Mutual offers gap insurance coverage, including in Nebraska, for around $4 to $5 per month. To qualify, you must be the first owner and purchase this coverage when you buy or lease the vehicle.

For non-leased vehicles, Liberty Mutual also provides new car replacement and better car replacement options:

• New car replacement: If your vehicle is less than one year old and has fewer than 15,000 miles, Liberty Mutual will pay for a replacement of the same make and model in the event of a total loss.
• Better car replacement: Liberty Mutual will replace your totaled vehicle with one that is one model year newer and has 15,000 fewer miles.

Car Insurance Made for Teachers

Nebraska is home to nearly 27,000 teachers, over 24,000 of which work in public schools as of the 2024 school year.⁴ To reward these molders of young minds, Liberty Mutual offers car insurance made for teachers specifically, with coverages such as:

• Collision coverage: If your car is damaged in a collision while you’re driving it for school reasons, you won’t have to pay a deductible before Liberty Mutual will cover your property damage or car replacement costs.
• Personal property coverage: If anything that you use for teaching, or anything that is owned by the school, is damaged or stolen while in your vehicle, Liberty Mutual will cover up to $2,500 per occurrence.
• Vandalism loss protection: Last but not least, if your car is vandalized while it’s parked on school property, or during an event related to school like a football game, you will also pay no deductible.

While companies like Liberty Mutual encourage customers to buy their car insurance policies online, Travelers prefers a more traditional approach. The company offers local agents in 280 different agencies across Nebraska, from Alliance to York.

Local Agencies Throughout the State

Buying insurance used to be more of a personal, human-to-human interaction. That was, until, companies like Esurance came around in the late nineties, selling insurance completely online. In the 25 years since, many companies have followed suit, and while Travelers offers an online quote option, it also offers many local agents throughout the great state of Nebraska with 280 agencies, to be exact. Here are the cities where you can walk into the office and buy a car insurance policy from an honest-to-god human:

• Alliance
• Alma
• Arlington
• Ashland
• Beatrice
• Beemer
• Bellevue
• Bennington
• Blair
• Bridgeport
• Broken Bow
• Bruning
• Callaway
• Carleton
• Ceresco
• Chadron
• Columbus
• Cozad
• Crete
• David City
• Denton
• Elkhorn
• Fairbury
• Falls City
• Fort Calhoun
• Fremont
• Ft Calhoun
• Fullerton
• Geneva
• Gibbon
• Gordon
• Gothenburg
• Grand Island
• Gretna
• Hastings
• Holdrege
• Imperial
• Kearney
• Kenesaw
• Lavista
• Lexington
• Lincoln
• McCook
• Minden
• Morrill
• Nebraska City
• Neligh
• Norfolk
• North Platte
• Ogallala
• Omaha
• Omana
• Osceola
• Oshkosh
• Papillion
• Pierce
• Pilger
• Plainview
• Ralston
• Rushville
• Sargent
• Schuyler
• Scottsbluff
• Seward
• Sidney
• Stuart
• Sutton
• Tecumseh
• Wahoo
• Wayne
• West Point
• York

Elevated Roadside Assistance

Getting stuck on the side of the road is never great, but it’s a heck of a lot better when you have already purchased roadside assistance. Travelers’ version covers battery jumpstarts, flat tires, fuel deliveries, towing, and lockout services.

The top-tier version also includes trip interruption coverage, which will reimburse you for up to $200 a day, for a maximum of three days, for any lodging and meal costs you incur as a result of a car breakdown at least 100 miles away from home. Additionally, this package will cover your personal property for up to $500 if it’s stolen or damaged under a covered comprehensive or collision claim.

Insurance for Loaned or Leased Vehicles

Most people can’t afford to buy their vehicles outright, so they turn to auto loans or auto leases, which require not only collision and comprehensive coverage, coverages that the state of Nebraska does not require, but also gap insurance, typically. Travelers’ gap insurance will cover the remainder of your lease/loan if you total your vehicle before you have finished paying it off. Its limit is equal to your car’s actual cash value, the amount it’s worth if you sold it tomorrow. But note that this coverage is only available to new car owners, so it’s not something you could apply to a pre-owned loaned or lease vehicle.

If you’re on a tight budget, auto insurance might feel like something you can skip. But with fines up to $1,000 or more in Nebraska for driving without insurance, not to mention the possibility of license suspension, it’s worth picking up at least a minimum coverage policy. American Family has some of the lowest rates for liability-only coverage in Nebraska, as well as some of the cheapest rates for teen drivers, who are notoriously expensive to insure.

Lowest Average Rates in Nebraska

You can get a liability-only policy from American Family for an average of just $38 monthly — second on our list only to USAA, whose availability is limited. For households with a teen driver, AmFam’s average rates for liability-only coverage rise to about $118 monthly — however, that’s just over half what it would cost for the same coverage with Nationwide.

Stellar Customer Service

J.D. Power asks real car insurance customers about their satisfaction with their providers, rating them on an 1,000-point scale. In the 2023 study for customers in the central region of the U.S., which includes Nebraska, American Family came in second just after Shelter, with 837 points, 15 points over the region’s average of 822. American Family also has higher-than-average ratings on J.D. Power’s national Auto Claims Satisfaction Study, with a score of 882, four points above the average of 878. If you want good customer service and a smooth claims process, AmFam is highly-ranked.

Savings for Young Drivers

It’s no secret that people with the least driving experience cause the most accidents, one of the reasons why the cost of car insurance for teens is so high. But not only does American Family offer low average prices in Nebraska for households with teen drivers, it also offers discounts on top of these low averages, such as:

• Good student: Students with good grades can get discounts on car insurance from AmFam.
• Loyalty: If your parents are AmFam customers, you’ll get a discount on your policy.
• Student away at school: Parents of students under age 25 who are at school at least 100 miles away from home and park their car at home can save money.
• Young volunteer: Finally, people under 25 who volunteer at a non-profit for at least 40 hours per year get discounts — this is a unique young driver discount we haven’t seen from other providers.

Car insurance for teens in Nebraska may still cost about 30 percent more than the average, but with these discounts, you may be able to lessen that gap even further.