Car insurance in Virginia

What Virginia law requires

Virginia is a compulsory insurance state: every registered vehicle must carry liability insurance from an insurer licensed in Virginia. For policies taking effect on or after January 1, 2025, the minimum limits are:

These figures are set in § 46.2-472 of the Code of Virginia and reproduced in the DMV's insurance requirements table. They replaced the older 30/60/20 limits, which applied to policies effective from January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2024. If your policy is an older one that has not yet renewed, it may still carry the lower limits — check your declarations page.

Virginia policies must also include uninsured motorist (UM) and underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage. These pay you when the other driver has no insurance, too little insurance, or cannot be identified (a hit-and-run). They are not optional add-ons in Virginia.

What the state does not require is personal injury protection (PIP). Medical payments coverage is sold here, but you have to ask for it.

For context on cost — not a quote from any insurer — the NAIC reported an average Virginia premium of $1,238 per insured vehicle in 2023, combining liability, collision and comprehensive. Your own figure depends on your car, your record, where you park at night and the limits you choose.

The uninsured-vehicle fee is gone

For decades Virginia let an owner skip insurance by paying an annual uninsured motor vehicle fee to DMV. That option ended on July 1, 2024. Paying the fee never bought you any coverage — it simply let you register an uninsured car and left you personally exposed for every dollar of damage you caused. Today there is no legal way to register a vehicle in Virginia without insurance.

If you are not going to insure a vehicle, the compliant route is to stop registering it: surrender the plates to DMV before the coverage lapses.

DMV is told electronically when a policy is cancelled, so a lapse is usually noticed without anyone reporting you. Get caught driving or registering an uninsured vehicle and, per DMV, your driving and vehicle registration privileges are suspended. To get them back you must pay a statutory non-compliance fee, pay any reinstatement fee, and file an SR-22 financial responsibility certificate for three years — a filing that insurers generally price as high-risk business. DMV notes that eligible owners may spread the statutory fee over time through its payment plan program.

Fault, claims and the contributory negligence trap

Virginia is an at-fault (tort) state. The driver who caused the crash — through their liability insurer — pays for the other side's injuries and property damage. There is no no-fault system and no PIP, so your own medical bills after someone else's mistake are typically recovered from that driver's bodily injury coverage, from your UM/UIM coverage, or from medical payments coverage if you bought it.

Virginia also follows the old common-law rule of contributory negligence: if you are found even slightly responsible for the crash, you can lose the right to recover from the other driver. Only a handful of states still work this way, and it makes two things matter enormously — the facts recorded at the scene, and what you say afterwards. Call police, photograph vehicle positions and road conditions, get witness details, and avoid casual apologies that an adjuster can read as an admission.

How a claim usually runs:

1. Report promptly to your own insurer, even if you intend to claim against the other driver. Your policy requires notice.
2. Choose a track. You can claim against the at-fault driver's insurer (a third-party claim) or, if you carry collision, use your own policy and let your insurer pursue the other side for the deductible through subrogation. The second route is usually faster.
3. Damage valuation. You are entitled to a fair settlement for repair or, if the car is a total loss, its actual cash value. Ask for the valuation report and the comparable vehicles used.
4. UM/UIM steps in if the at-fault driver is uninsured, underinsured or unidentified — one reason to carry UM limits well above the state floor.

The Bureau of Insurance is explicit that it cannot decide who was negligent or whose version of events is true. Disputed liability is a matter for the insurers, and ultimately a court.

Optional cover worth having in Virginia

• Higher liability limits. The 50/100/25 floor is more generous than many states', but a serious injury crash or a collision with a late-model truck can outrun it, and the shortfall is yours personally. Raising liability limits is usually one of the cheaper upgrades on a policy.
• Higher UM/UIM limits. UM/UIM in Virginia is normally offered up to your liability limits. Since it protects you and your passengers from the drivers least likely to be able to pay, matching it to your liability limits is sensible.
• Collision and comprehensive. Not required by the state, but required by any lender or lessor. Comprehensive covers deer strikes, flooding, hail, falling branches and theft — all realistic in Virginia, from the Blue Ridge to the Hampton Roads coast.
• Medical payments (MedPay). Fills the PIP-shaped gap: it pays medical bills for you and your passengers regardless of fault, with no deductible, which is valuable precisely because contributory negligence can delay or defeat a liability claim.
• Rental reimbursement and towing. Small coverages that matter most if repair shop queues in your area are long.
• Gap coverage. If you financed a new car with little money down, actual cash value after a total loss can fall short of the loan balance.
• Umbrella liability. Sits above both auto and home liability; worth pricing if you have assets or wages worth protecting.

Rules and habits Virginia drivers trip on

• Assuming your old limits are still legal. The increase to 50/100/25 applies as policies take effect or renew. A long-standing policy may still show 30/60/20 until its next renewal.
• Letting a policy lapse for a month between cars. DMV sees the cancellation. A gap on a registered vehicle is a compliance problem even if the car never moves — surrender the plates instead.
• Moving here and keeping an out-of-state policy. Once you register a vehicle in Virginia, it needs a Virginia policy from a licensed insurer meeting Virginia minimums.
• Antique and infrequently used vehicles. DMV applies insurance requirements to antique-plated vehicles too; don't assume limited use means no coverage obligation.
• Credit-based insurance scores. Virginia permits insurers to use them in pricing and eligibility. That makes shopping around worthwhile, because insurers weight credit information very differently from one another.
• Treating the state minimum as a target. It's a legal floor, not a measure of what a bad crash costs.
• Not reading the total-loss offer. Ask how the valuation was built, and point out trim, mileage and recent work the insurer missed.
• Missing a renewal notice after an address change. Update your address with both your insurer and DMV; a non-renewal you never saw becomes a lapse.

Complaining to the Virginia regulator

Auto insurers in Virginia are regulated by the Bureau of Insurance at the Virginia State Corporation Commission (scc.virginia.gov/boi).

Start with the company: ask for a written explanation and the policy language it relies on, and keep every letter, email and claim number. If that goes nowhere, the Bureau takes complaints through its online Insurance Complaint Portal — you create an account, submit the complaint and upload your supporting documents. Note that the Bureau states it does not accept complaints by phone or email, though its Property and Casualty Consumer Services staff will answer questions by phone or at their published email address, and a toll-free line is available.

Be realistic about what the regulator can do. The Bureau can press an insurer to follow Virginia insurance law and its own policy terms. It says it cannot determine who was at fault, decide which account of a crash is true, review medical records to judge a claim, act as your lawyer, get involved in pending litigation, or force a company to pay beyond the policy. For fault disputes and injury damages, the forum is a lawyer and the courts — and in a contributory negligence state, early legal advice can matter.

The SCC also publishes consumer education material, including an auto insurance guide, on its consumer pages.