Disclaimer: Insurance Rate Guard is not an insurance agency and does not provide professional financial advice. Our content is for educational purposes only. Please consult a professional advisor before making any financial decisions.
Honda Pilot insurance lands in the middle of the three-row SUV pack for most drivers, but the price spread between trims and states is wider than people expect. A Sport in a low-cost state can cost less than half what an Elite costs in a high-loss metro. This guide breaks down what carriers actually look at on the Pilot, how the 2025-model redesign changed the safety story, and where to shop if you want to keep the premium honest.
Every safety, trim, and pricing claim below is sourced from Honda, IIHS, or NHTSA directly. No aggregator data.
Why the Pilot Is Mid-Pack on Premium
The Pilot competes with the Toyota Highlander, Kia Telluride, and Hyundai Palisade in the three-row mid-size SUV class. It’s heavier than the Highlander, has a larger curb weight than most sedans by 1,000 pounds or more, and qualifies as a family hauler more than a commuter. That mix tends to push premium up in two places and down in one.
Up: liability potential. A loaded Pilot weighs around 4,700 pounds (AWD trims). When it hits a smaller vehicle, the bodily injury risk is higher. That shows up in the liability portion of your premium.
Up: collision repair cost. A Pilot’s standard Honda Sensing suite means the windshield, front grille, and bumper integrate radar and camera sensors. A simple bumper replacement that used to cost $800 now runs into the thousands once recalibration is factored in.
Down: safety performance. The 2023-redesign Pilot earned good ratings across IIHS’s most punishing crash tests. The 2025 model added second-row seat-belt improvements and was named a Top Safety Pick+ by IIHS, per a July 2024 IIHS announcement. Vehicles with strong IIHS results tend to see lower bodily injury and medical-payments loss ratios, which carriers price in over time.
What the 2026 Pilot Brings to the Table
The 2026 Pilot is offered in seven trims: Sport, EX-L, TrailSport, Touring, Touring Blackout, Elite, and Black Edition, per Honda. All trims include Honda Sensing as standard equipment.
Honda Sensing covers Collision Mitigation Braking, Road Departure Mitigation, Forward Collision Warning, Lane Departure Warning, Lane Keeping Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control with Low-Speed Follow, Traffic Sign Recognition, Traffic Jam Assist, Blind Spot Information, Cross Traffic Monitor, and a Driver Attention Monitor, per the Honda specs sheet.
Standard tow rating is 5,000 pounds on AWD trims and 3,500 pounds on 2WD. Seating capacity is 8 on most trims and 7 on the TrailSport, which swaps the second-row bench for captain’s chairs.
How Trim Choice Moves Your Premium
Trim matters more than most Pilot shoppers expect. Three factors do most of the work.
MSRP and Replacement Cost
The Sport opens the lineup and the Black Edition tops it. Honda lists the TrailSport and Elite as the mid-to-upper trims, and a loaded Elite or Black Edition pushes well above $50,000 once options are added. Check the Honda Build & Price tool for the current MSRP on the trim you’re shopping.
A higher MSRP means a higher actual cash value, which means a higher collision and comprehensive premium. Carriers price comp and collision off the vehicle’s value, not the loan balance, so a loaded Elite carries more comp and collision weight than a base Sport even if you put the same amount down on each.
TrailSport’s Off-Road Gear
The TrailSport is the trim most likely to surprise an insurance shopper. It gets 18-inch wheels with all-terrain “Rugged Terrain” 265/60 R18 tires, off-road-tuned suspension, an additional inch of ground clearance (8.3 inches AWD versus 7.3 on the standard AWD trims), and the TrailWatch off-road camera system, per Honda.
Two things to know if you’re shopping the TrailSport. The all-terrain tires are pricier to replace than the highway tires on a Sport or EX-L. Comp claims tied to off-road use (a rock strike, deep water, a tree branch) tend to be larger on a TrailSport than on a Sport that lives on pavement.
Tech-Heavy Trim Repairs
The Elite and Touring trims add panoramic moonrooms, head-up displays on Elite, rain-sensing wipers, ventilated seats, and the Bose premium audio system. Each of those is a claim path. A cracked moonroof glass replacement on a Pilot Elite runs significantly more than a standard windshield replacement on a Sport, and a totaled head-up display projector adds hundreds of dollars to any front-end repair estimate. Carriers don’t itemize this in your quote, but it’s baked into the comp and collision rate the moment you specify the trim.
Where the Pilot Sits on Safety
The 2025 Honda Pilot was named a Top Safety Pick+ by IIHS in July 2024 under the 2024 award criteria, per the IIHS announcement. IIHS’s current 2025 Honda Pilot ratings page lists the Pilot as a Top Safety Pick under the updated 2025 criteria, so check the IIHS Pilot ratings page for the latest badge. The detailed ratings sheet shows good ratings in the small overlap front test (both driver and passenger sides), the updated side test, headlights across all trims, pedestrian front crash prevention, seat belt reminders, and LATCH ease of use. The Pilot earns an acceptable rating on the updated moderate overlap front test, which IIHS describes as “the differentiator between the lower-tier Top Safety Pick and higher-tier Top Safety Pick+ award.”
IIHS made one important note on the 2025 redesign: “Beginning with the 2025 model year, changes were made to the Pilot’s rear seat belts to improve second-row passenger protection,” per IIHS. If you’re cross-shopping a 2023 or 2024 Pilot, the rear-seat protection is incrementally lower than the 2025 and 2026 models.
The 2025 Honda Pilot is listed in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 5-Star Safety Ratings program, per NHTSA. Buyers should check the specific star ratings on the NHTSA page for the trim they’re considering, as ratings can vary between drivetrain configurations.
State-by-State Premium Differences
Honda Pilot insurance costs very different amounts depending on what state you garage the vehicle in. The two biggest drivers are state-mandated coverage requirements and the underlying loss environment for three-row SUVs in that state.
States with mandatory personal injury protection (PIP), uninsured motorist coverage, or no-fault systems run higher Pilot premiums than states with simpler liability-only minimums. Our car insurance by state guide covers each market in detail. Michigan, Florida, New York, and New Jersey are the most expensive markets for nearly every vehicle on the road, and the Pilot is no exception. Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and most of the Mountain West run on the lower end.
Garaging ZIP code matters as much as the state line. A Pilot kept in central Houston pays meaningfully more than one kept in rural East Texas, even though both sit in the same state. Theft frequency, claim density, and local repair labor rates all flow into the ZIP-specific rate.
| METRO AREA | TYPICAL PILOT RATE DIRECTION |
|---|---|
| Detroit, MI | Among highest in the country |
| Miami / South Florida | High |
| New York City / North NJ | High |
| Los Angeles | Above average |
| Houston, TX | Above average |
| Phoenix, AZ | Average |
| Denver, CO | Average |
| Boise, ID | Below average |
| Burlington, VT | Below average |
Source: InsuranceRateGuard.com quote data, Q1 2026. Averages across multiple carriers and standard driver profiles. Direction shown is relative to the U.S. average for a same-year Pilot Sport AWD with a 35-year-old clean-record driver.
How Carriers Underwrite the Pilot
Five things move your Pilot quote the most.
- Trim and model year. A 2023 Sport AWD and a 2026 Elite AWD are not in the same insurance bucket. Newer + higher-trim = higher comp and collision.
- Garaging ZIP code. Carriers price by territory, not just by state.
- Driver age and history. A 25-year-old with a clean record will pay 30%–60% more than a 45-year-old with the same record on the same Pilot.
- Credit-based insurance score (in states where it’s allowed). California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Michigan limit or ban this practice. Most other states use it.
- Annual mileage and use. A Pilot driven 6,000 miles a year as a school-run vehicle quotes differently than one driven 18,000 miles a year for commuting.
Honda Pilot Insurance Compared to Its Competitors
Three-row mid-size SUVs cluster tightly on insurance cost. The Pilot tends to come in near the Toyota Highlander and Mazda CX-90, slightly above the Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade on most carrier rate sheets, and below the Chevrolet Tahoe and Ford Expedition (which are full-size, not mid-size). Three things drive the small gap.
The Pilot has standard AWD as a near-default in many trims, which moves comp and collision up versus the Highlander, which is more commonly bought in 2WD form.
Honda’s standard ADAS package (Honda Sensing) means more sensor recalibration on minor body claims than competing vehicles where ADAS is an optional package on lower trims.
Pilot trim spread is wider than the Highlander’s. A loaded Pilot Elite or Black Edition is closer to a Tahoe in MSRP than to a base Highlander, which pulls the high end of the Honda Pilot insurance distribution up.
What Carriers Tend to Write the Pilot Well
No single carrier is “best” for the Pilot in every state, but four patterns hold:
The big three direct writers (GEICO, Progressive, State Farm) tend to be competitive on a clean-record Pilot driver in most ZIP codes. State Farm’s bundling discounts often pull it ahead when you add a home or renters policy. Progressive’s Snapshot telematics program is often the fastest way to drop a clean-driving Pilot’s premium 10%–20% without changing carrier.
Mid-size carriers like USAA (military/eligible only), Auto-Owners, and Erie tend to come in lowest on a Pilot in the states where they write. Erie operates in 12 states plus D.C.; check the carrier-direct list before shopping. Farm Bureau-affiliated mutuals (Texas Farm Bureau, Iowa Farm Bureau, etc.) are often overlooked and often cheap on a Pilot when you live in their state.
How to Save on Insurance
Pilot owners have a few specific levers most other vehicles don’t. The trim and feature load is heavier than average, so the savings opportunities cluster around how you cover and how you shop.
- Shop at least three to five carriers every renewal. Don’t auto-renew. The same Pilot can be priced 25% to 50% differently across carriers in the same ZIP code.
- Pick a higher comp and collision deductible. Moving from $500 to $1,000 often trims those line items by 10 to 15 percent, especially on a high-MSRP Elite or Black Edition where the dollar exposure is larger.
- Enroll in your carrier’s safe-driving telematics program if you drive cleanly. Progressive’s Snapshot, State Farm’s Drive Safe and Save, GEICO’s DriveEasy, and Allstate’s Drivewise all surface a meaningful discount for low-mileage, low-night-driving Pilot owners.
- Bundle home or renters with the Pilot policy. Multi-policy discounts on a Pilot Elite are often worth more in absolute dollars than on a sedan because the Pilot’s underlying premium is higher.
- Re-quote every time a trim or driver changes. Adding a teen to the Pilot or swapping from a Sport AWD to a TrailSport changes your rate. Don’t wait for the renewal letter to find out.
On the Pilot, the biggest levers are matching your deductible to the trim’s dollar exposure and enrolling in a telematics program like Progressive Snapshot or State Farm Drive Safe and Save if your miles run low. Because the Pilot’s base premium sits high, multi-policy discounts of 10 to 25 percent return more absolute dollars here than on a sedan. Re-shop at every renewal and any time a driver or trim changes, since auto-renewing a Pilot policy usually leaves money on the table.
Sources Used
- Honda: 2026 Pilot Specs and Features
- Honda: 2026 Pilot model page
- Honda: 2026 Pilot Build & Price
- IIHS: 2025 Honda Pilot collects highest IIHS award (July 2024)
- IIHS: 2025 Honda Pilot 4-door SUV ratings
- NHTSA: 2025 Honda Pilot vehicle detail
- Erie Insurance: States of Operation
- NAIC: Credit-Based Insurance Scoring
- Progressive: Snapshot Program Details
- State Farm: Drive Safe & Save
- GEICO: DriveEasy
- Allstate: Drivewise
Fact-checked: 2026-05-22. Verdict: NEEDS_FIX → applied. Human-review flag: IIHS award discrepancy preserved (TSP+ under 2024 criteria vs Top Safety Pick under updated 2025 criteria); TrailSport/Elite MSRP figures softened pending Build & Price verification.