Short Term Auto Insurance: Your Real Options

Search for “short-term car insurance” and you'll find plenty of ads for one-day or one-week policies. In the United States, those mostly don't exist: standard insurers sell policies for six or twelve months. What you can do is cover a short period in other ways. The right one depends on whose car you'll drive and for how long.

Borrowing a friend's or relative's car

In most cases, insurance follows the car. If the owner lets you drive it occasionally, their policy usually covers you as a permissive driver, and you may not need anything of your own. Before you drive, ask the owner to check their policy for exclusions (some policies exclude named drivers or limit cover for people who aren't listed), and remember that a claim goes on the owner's record. If you'll be using the car regularly, you'll usually need to be listed on the owner's policy.

Renting a car

A personal car policy usually carries its liability cover, and often its collision cover, over to cars you rent within the U.S. Many credit cards add secondary cover for rental damage. Without a policy of your own, you can buy liability cover and a damage waiver at the rental desk; for a short rental, that's the simplest short-term cover. Check what your own policy and card include before paying for the counter products twice.

Driving without owning a car: non-owner insurance

For people with no car of their own who regularly drive borrowed or rented ones, a non-owner car insurance policy gives you liability cover of your own. It's usually sold for six months, but it's generally much cheaper than insuring a car, and you can drop it once you stop needing it. It's also the usual way to keep an SR-22 filing without a vehicle.

Needing cover for a few months

If you own a car but need it insured for only part of the year, take a normal six-month term and end it early. You'll normally get back the premium for the unused months, but some insurers deduct a fee or use a less generous refund formula, so ask about this first. For a car you'll only drive a little, pay-per-mile policies from several large insurers charge a low base rate plus a charge for each mile you drive. If a car will be off the road for months, some insurers let you drop to comprehensive-only cover. Check your state's rules first, because many states require liability cover for as long as a car is registered.

Visiting the U.S. from another country

Your home-country car insurance almost never covers you on U.S. roads. Most visitors who drive rent a car and buy liability cover from the rental company, or borrow a car from a host whose policy covers occasional drivers. Most states let visitors drive for a limited time on a valid foreign license, and an International Driving Permit (a translation of your license) helps, especially if your license isn't in English. If you stay longer, you may need a license from the state you live in. Buying a U.S. policy of your own usually requires a U.S. address, and insurers price drivers with no U.S. driving record cautiously.

What short-term cover costs, and how to keep it cheap

Short-term cover is expensive per day. Rental counter cover is priced for convenience, and an insurer that knows little about your driving history charges for that uncertainty. The cheapest short-term options are usually the ones that use cover that already exists:

Drive the car as an occasional driver on the owner's policy, if their insurer allows it.
Use the rental cover already in your own policy and your credit card, instead of the counter products.
For regular borrowing over months, compare a non-owner policy against being added to the owner's policy.
For a car you own, a six-month policy cancelled early, or a pay-per-mile policy, usually beats any “temporary” product.

Be wary of websites selling “one-day car insurance” for U.S. drivers: confirm with your state insurance regulator that the seller is licensed there before you pay anything. To compare standard policies, enter your ZIP code below.

Written by the CarInsuranceHub.com editorial team. Last updated September 2026. Rules on permissive use, non-owner policies and foreign licenses vary by insurer and state; check the policy wording and your state motor vehicle agency.