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The General has been running TV ads for decades, and the pitch has barely changed: get a car insurance quote in about the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee. That message lands hardest on drivers who have already been turned down or priced out somewhere else. A DUI, two at-fault accidents, a six-month lapse in coverage, or a credit file that is basically empty will send most big carriers running.
What you get in return is unglamorous but real: state-compliant coverage at a price that reflects your record. The General isn’t the cheapest option for someone with a spotless history, and it isn’t pretending to be. It’s a non-standard carrier, which means it built its business on the drivers that standard insurers filter out.
Here’s what the policy actually looks like, what it costs, and where it stops making sense.
Who The General Is Actually Built For
Founded in Nashville in 1963 and owned by American Family Insurance since 2012, The General writes policies through Permanent General Assurance Corporation and a handful of affiliated companies. Its specialty is the non-standard market. In plain terms, that means:
- Drivers with at least one at-fault accident or moving violation on record
- People who need an SR-22 or FR-44 filing before their license can be reinstated
- Drivers with no prior insurance or a recent gap in coverage
- Newly licensed teenagers and drivers in their early twenties
- People with thin credit files or poor insurance scores
If you fall into one of those buckets, State Farm or Progressive might still quote you, but the number can be rough. The General’s value is that it specializes in exactly this profile, so it isn’t shocked by your record and doesn’t load on a punitive surcharge on top of an already high base rate.
Coverage Options You Can Pick and Choose From
State minimum liability
The General will sell you the bare minimum your state requires, which in many states means something like 25/50/25: $25,000 per person for injuries, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage. It satisfies the law. It rarely satisfies a serious crash. If you total someone’s new truck and their medical bills run past your limits, the difference comes out of your bank account, not the insurer’s.
Collision and comprehensive
These cover your own vehicle after a crash or a theft, hail storm, or deer strike. If you’re financing or leasing, your lender will require both. On an older car worth under $4,000, run the math: if a year of collision premiums costs more than 10 percent of the car’s value, dropping it is usually the smarter move.
Add-ons worth pricing out
- Roadside assistance: towing, jump-starts, flat tires, and lockouts, usually a few dollars a month
- Rental reimbursement: typically $30 to $50 a day while your car is in the shop
- Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, which is worth every penny in states where it’s optional
- Medical payments or personal injury protection, mandatory in no-fault states like Florida and Michigan
One thing people miss: your personal policy generally follows you into a domestic rental car, so you don’t need the counter agent’s add-on. That logic flips the moment you leave the country, where trip coverage that handles rental damage and medical bills abroad is the piece doing the work.
What The General Auto Insurance Costs in Practice
Rates swing wildly depending on your state, your vehicle, and how bad the record is. As a rough benchmark, a 32-year-old with one at-fault accident and a lapsed policy might see full-coverage quotes between $2,400 and $3,600 a year from The General, against maybe $1,600 from a standard carrier that would even bother to quote them. Minimum-only coverage tends to land between $900 and $1,500 annually.
Geography matters as much as your driving. Michigan and Louisiana routinely run double what Ohio or Idaho charge for the same driver. And watch the payment plan. Splitting your premium into monthly installments often adds a $5 to $10 fee per payment, which quietly tacks on $60 to $120 a year.
The honest takeaway: The General isn’t automatically the cheapest non-standard carrier. Get at least three quotes, because the spread between the highest and lowest bid on the same driver can easily hit $1,000.
The Fine Print That Costs People Money
SR-22 filings
If a court or your DMV ordered a filing, confirm in writing that the carrier will submit the certificate directly to the state and how much it charges for it. Not every insurer handles the paperwork, and a missed filing can cost you your license all over again. The details of how SR-22 requirements work and how long they follow you are worth reading before you sign anything.
Minimum earned premium
Some non-standard policies include a minimum earned premium, which means if you cancel after six weeks, you may get very little of your money back. Ask about the cancellation terms before the first payment clears.
The lapse trap
Miss a payment and your coverage can drop within days. A lapse raises your rate at the next renewal, and in states with automated insurance verification, it can trigger a registration suspension and a reinstatement fee. Setting up autopay is cheaper than fixing a lapse.
Where The General Falls Short
Customer satisfaction scores have historically sat below the industry average in J.D. Power’s auto insurance studies, and complaints tend to cluster around claims communication and billing. The company also leans heavily on phone and online service, so if you want an agent across a desk from you, this isn’t the fit. Drivers over 50 who value a human on the other end of the line often do better with the AARP-endorsed insurance program and its agent network.
The discount menu is also shorter than what the big national carriers offer. You’ll find paid-in-full, multi-car, homeowner, and occasional defensive-driving credits, but don’t expect the deep bundling savings that come from pairing auto with home or renters coverage.
If You Drive for a Living, Read This Before You Buy
A personal auto policy from The General, or anyone else, typically excludes commercial use. Deliver pizzas three nights a week, drive for a rideshare app, or haul tools between job sites, and a claim can be denied outright. Rideshare companies provide some coverage while you’re logged into the app, but the gaps are real and expensive. If your car is a work tool, you need a commercial policy sized to what your business actually does, not a personal one quietly doing a job it wasn’t written for.
How to Bring the Premium Down
- Pay in full if you can. It removes installment fees and usually earns a discount.
- Raise your deductible from $500 to $1,000 and keep that amount in savings so a claim doesn’t wreck you.
- Ask about a prior-insurance discount. Continuous coverage, even with a different carrier, often earns a credit.
- Take a defensive driving course. Several states mandate a discount for it, and The General offers one voluntarily in others.
- Fix your credit. In most states, insurance scores affect your rate, and pulling a score up 50 points can shave real money off a renewal.
Before You Sign the Application
Have your license number, VIN, current declarations page, and lienholder details in front of you so the quote you get is the quote you keep. Be honest about violations. Undisclosed tickets surface at renewal and produce a mid-year rate increase that feels like a bait-and-switch, even when the fine print gave them every right to do it.
Then set a calendar reminder for ten months out. Accidents, tickets, and DUI convictions age off your record on a schedule, and each one that drops can move you from the non-standard market back into standard territory. Plenty of people stay with a high-risk carrier for years simply because nobody re-shopped the policy. Run the quotes again. If a mainstream insurer now beats your renewal by $600, switch, and keep switching every year or two until the gap closes.
