Car insurance in Colorado

What Colorado law requires you to carry

Colorado requires liability insurance on every registered vehicle. The legal floor, confirmed by the Colorado Division of Insurance, is 25/50/15:

• $25,000 for bodily injury to any one person in a crash you cause
• $50,000 for bodily injury to all people in that crash
• $15,000 for damage to someone else's property

Liability pays other people — it does nothing for your own car or your own injuries. If your car is financed or leased, the lender will almost certainly require collision and comprehensive coverage on top of the state minimum.

Two more coverages are, in practice, part of every new Colorado policy unless you say otherwise in writing:

• Medical payments (MedPay) — a set amount of MedPay is automatically included unless you reject it in writing (or by the same method you used to apply). MedPay covers you and your passengers regardless of who caused the crash, and it pays before your health insurance, so it can absorb your health plan's deductible or coinsurance.
• Uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) — optional in Colorado, but your insurer must include it unless you reject it in writing.

The Division notes that MedPay doesn't have to be offered on motorcycles, low-powered scooters, off-road vehicles, and similar vehicles.

Fault, PIP, and how a claim actually plays out

Colorado is an at-fault (tort) state. The driver who caused the crash — through their liability insurer — is responsible for the other side's injuries and property damage. Colorado repealed its no-fault system in 2003, so there is no required personal injury protection (PIP). If someone tells you Colorado is a no-fault state, they're working from a decades-old script.

What that means for you after a crash:

1. Fault gets decided by the insurers, based on police reports, statements, photos, and damage patterns. The Division of Insurance is explicit that it does not decide liability or how much is owed on a claim — that's the insurer's call, with the courts as the backstop.
2. Your own first-aid coverages fill the gap while fault is sorted out. MedPay pays medical bills right away without waiting for a liability decision. Collision coverage repairs your car and your insurer then chases the at-fault carrier for reimbursement (you usually get your deductible back if they recover).
3. If the other driver has no insurance or not enough, UM/UIM is what stands between you and an unpaid bill. The Division estimates roughly 15–20% of drivers on the road are uninsured — which is exactly why rejecting UM/UIM in writing is a decision worth thinking twice about.

Colorado uses modified comparative fault, so a payout can be reduced by your share of the blame; if you're found more at fault than the other driver, you may recover nothing from them.

Optional coverage worth paying for

Beyond the legal minimum, these are the add-ons that matter most in Colorado:

• Higher liability limits. A single serious injury claim can outrun the per-person minimum quickly, and anything above your limit is yours to pay. Moving up a notch is usually the cheapest real protection you can buy.
• UM/UIM bodily injury. Covers your injuries when the at-fault driver is uninsured, underinsured, or a hit-and-run. It's the single most commonly regretted rejection.
• Uninsured motorist property damage (UMPD). A separate, optional coverage that pays for damage to your car caused by an at-fault uninsured driver — but only if you don't carry collision, and only if the vehicles actually made contact. It pays actual cash value or repair cost, whichever is less.
• Comprehensive. Colorado's Front Range sits in one of the country's busiest hail corridors. Hail, wind-driven debris, wildlife strikes, theft, and wildfire damage all fall under comprehensive, not collision.
• Collision, for any car you couldn't comfortably replace out of pocket.
• Rental reimbursement and roadside assistance, especially if mountain driving or a long body-shop queue after a hailstorm would leave you stranded.

One gap to know about: coverage generally doesn't apply while your car is rented or leased out to others, unless you've bought a coverage that specifically addresses it.

Rules and habits that trip Colorado drivers up

• "I rejected UM/UIM or MedPay to save money." Rejections must be in writing, and they stick with the policy. Check your declarations page — if those lines are blank, you opted out at some point, possibly years ago.
• Assuming no-fault rules apply. Your medical bills are not automatically paid by your own insurer unless you kept MedPay.
• Carrying only the minimum on a financed car. The state minimum satisfies the law, not your loan.
• Letting coverage lapse. The Division lists gaps in coverage as something that can raise what you pay later — and Colorado runs an insurance-verification database tied to registration, so lapses tend to surface.
• Thinking the insurer picks your body shop. It doesn't. Under section 10-4-120, C.R.S., you choose the repair facility; the insurer may recommend preferred shops and guarantee their work, but it can't require one. It will, however, pay reasonable market rates — excessive labor or storage charges may not be paid in full.
• Expecting a diminished-value payout. The Division says there is currently no Colorado insurance statute addressing diminished value, so it's not something the regulator can enforce for you.
• Expecting a statutory clock on claim responses. Colorado's insurance laws don't set specific response deadlines, though the Division can take unreasonable delay up with the company.
• Forgetting that credit matters here. Colorado permits credit-based insurance scores in pricing, and the Division lists a change in your credit-based insurance score among the things that can move your premium. Address changes, added drivers, mileage changes, and at-fault accidents do the same.

What Colorado drivers pay, and why rates move

The NAIC's most recent published average for Colorado — combining liability, collision, and comprehensive, per insured vehicle — is $1,655 for 2023. Treat that as a yardstick, not a quote: your own cost depends on where in the state you park, your vehicle, your driving record, your coverage choices and deductibles, and your credit-based insurance score.

The Division of Insurance does not set rates in Colorado. Insurers file their own rates based on their loss and expense experience, and Division staff review those filings to confirm the company can support them. There's no statutory cap on how much a company may request.

The Division attributes broad, industry-wide increases to repair-cost inflation and vehicle complexity, hail and other weather losses on comprehensive, insurance fraud, distracted driving, and the cost shifted onto insured drivers by uninsured ones.

Two free state tools are worth using before you buy: the Division's auto premium comparison tool and its complaint ratio/index report, both linked from the auto insurance page. The Division cannot recommend or endorse any particular company, so those reports are as close to an official scorecard as you'll get.

How to complain to the Colorado Division of Insurance

If a claim is denied, delayed, or settled in a way you think is unreasonable, the Division's Consumer Services section will review how the company handled it.

What the Division will do: contact the insurer, confirm it conducted a reasonable investigation, considered the available information, and complied with Colorado insurance law.

What it won't do: decide who was at fault, determine what coverage is owed, or negotiate a settlement for you. Those remain the insurer's decisions, subject to the courts.

How to file:

1. Ask first. Call Consumer Services at 303-894-7490, or 800-930-3745 outside the Denver metro area, or email DORA_Insurance@state.co.us, Monday–Friday, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Many problems are answered without a formal complaint.
2. File through the Consumer Portal, linked from doi.colorado.gov/for-consumers/file-a-complaint. You create an account, complete several pages, and receive a Complaint ID by email. You can then upload supporting documents and message the Division about your case through the portal. Note the portal does not autosave — submit before you walk away.
3. Or mail it in using the downloadable Complaint Form / Request for Assistance on the same page.

The Division also asks consumers not to lean on AI tools to draft complaints, warning that AI-generated filings frequently contain errors about state law and policy terms that slow the investigation down. Write it yourself, in your own words, and attach the paperwork.

The Division's mailing address is 1560 Broadway, Suite 1300, Denver, CO 80202.