Car Insurance Minimum Requirements by State: A Full Comparison

Minimum Liability Limits, All 50 States

Splits are written the way your state writes them — bodily injury per person / bodily injury per accident / property damage, in thousands. Where a split is shown, it comes from the Insurance Information Institute's state minimum liability table (rev. 7/2024), reproduced via the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America risk education page, or from the later statutory change noted in that row. Where a row says "see state guide," the figure is not reproduced here; check the state's own statute or DMV financial-responsibility schedule before you buy, because several legislatures have revised their minimums since 2023.

The PIP column follows the twelve PIP-mandate states identified by WalletHub (2026) and AAA. "Add-on" marks the states where PIP sits alongside an at-fault system and may be required or optional depending on the statute — Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin (Jerry).

These are legal minimums only. A lender or lessor will normally require comprehensive and collision coverage with a stated maximum deductible for as long as there is a loan on the car — that is a contract term, not a state law, and it is enforced by force-placing coverage rather than by the DMV. Keep the two lists separate when you are deciding what to buy.

No-Fault vs. Tort States

Which system your state uses decides who you file the injury claim with first, and whether you can sue for pain and suffering at all.

• Pure (mandatory) no-fault — Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota and Utah. You file your own injury bills with your own PIP coverage regardless of who caused the crash, and you can only step outside that system and sue the other driver once your injuries or costs clear the state's threshold.
• Choice no-fault — New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. These three are among the twelve PIP states but let drivers choose between a no-fault policy and a traditional liability policy (WalletHub, 2026), so where your injury claim goes depends on which option you selected when you bought the policy, not just on where you live.
• At-fault/tort — the remaining states and the District of Columbia: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. You claim against the at-fault driver's bodily injury liability coverage and retain the right to sue, which is why the per-person BI limit in the table matters more here than anywhere else.

Some of those tort states run PIP as an "add-on": Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin (Jerry). Delaware, for example, requires $15,000/$30,000 of PIP alongside 25/50/10 liability (Insurance Information Institute, 2024-07) — you get first-party medical coverage without losing the right to sue.

Regional Patterns in Coverage Requirements

The clearest pattern in the table is not geographic — it is chronological. A cluster of states has moved to a 50/100 bodily injury floor in the space of three years: Utah, up from 30/60/20 under House Bill 113, passed in 2023; Virginia, up from 30/60/20 to 50/100/25 as phase two of its overhaul, in a state where insurance was not even a legal requirement before July 2024 (Bankrate, 2025); and North Carolina's jump to 50/100/50 effective July 1, 2025 (Insurance Journal, 2025-01-15). California made a smaller move in the same direction, from 15/30/5 to 30/60/15 effective January 2025 (Bankrate, 2025). They join Alaska and Maine, which already sat at 50/100/25 (Insurance Information Institute, 2024-07).

The plausible driver is that a fixed dollar limit erodes. A per-person bodily injury limit written into statute decades ago buys progressively less emergency treatment, surgery and lost-wage reimbursement each year, and property damage limits in single digits of thousands no longer total a late-model vehicle. Legislatures do not index these numbers, so they sit still until a bill moves them in one step — which is why the increases arrive as single jumps rather than annual drift. North Carolina is a useful check on the assumption that higher minimums simply mean higher prices: the state still ranks in the middle of the pack for full-coverage insurance rates despite having among the highest minimums in the country (Insurance Journal, 2025-01-15).

The second pattern is that the lowest liability floors sit in states that handle injuries elsewhere. Florida requires no bodily injury liability at all, just $10,000 of PIP and $10,000 of property damage liability (MoneyGeek, 2026), because the no-fault system is meant to absorb the first layer of injury cost. The District of Columbia pairs a 25/50/10 split with mandatory uninsured motorist coverage (Insurance Information Institute, 2024-07), and Kansas requires UM, UIM and PIP on top of 25/50/25 (Insurance Information Institute, 2024-07) — in both, the protection is built into your own policy rather than the other driver's. Read the liability split and the first-party requirements together; neither column tells you much alone.

None of this makes a state minimum adequate for your situation. Whether 25/50/25 or 50/100/50 leaves you exposed depends on your assets, your medical coverage, the cars you share the road with and what your own policy says.

Look Up Your State's Full Requirements

Each state guide sets out the statutory split, any PIP or uninsured motorist mandate, proof-of-insurance rules and penalties, and notes any change still phasing in.

Northeast

• Connecticut requirements
• Maine requirements
• Massachusetts requirements
• New Hampshire requirements
• New Jersey requirements
• New York requirements
• Pennsylvania requirements
• Rhode Island requirements
• Vermont requirements

South and Mid-Atlantic

• Alabama requirements
• Arkansas requirements
• Delaware requirements
• District of Columbia requirements
• Florida requirements
• Georgia requirements
• Kentucky requirements
• Louisiana requirements
• Maryland requirements
• Mississippi requirements
• North Carolina requirements
• Oklahoma requirements
• South Carolina requirements
• Tennessee requirements
• Texas requirements
• Virginia requirements
• West Virginia requirements

Midwest

• Illinois requirements
• Indiana requirements
• Iowa requirements
• Kansas requirements
• Michigan requirements
• Minnesota requirements
• Missouri requirements
• Nebraska requirements
• North Dakota requirements
• Ohio requirements
• South Dakota requirements
• Wisconsin requirements

West

• Alaska requirements
• Arizona requirements
• California requirements
• Colorado requirements
• Hawaii requirements
• Idaho requirements
• Montana requirements
• Nevada requirements
• New Mexico requirements
• Oregon requirements
• Utah requirements
• Washington requirements
• Wyoming requirements