Liability car insurance is one of the basic forms of coverage, and it’s included in almost every auto insurance policy. Liability car insurance covers damage that you cause to someone else in a crash, including their medical bills and the cost to repair their car or other property. Your liability insurance can also cover legal fees if you’re sued. Show
Compare rates and shop affordable car insurance today We don't sell your information to third parties. Liability car insurance is relatively affordable — raising your coverage limits by tens of thousands of dollars might only have a small impact on your auto insurance rates. But your liability coverage doesn’t cover damage to your own car, in order for your insurance to cover damage and theft you’ll need to add other types of coverage. Key takeaways
Liability car insurance is the part of your auto insurance that covers the cost of medical bills and property damage you’re responsible for after an accident. Nearly every state requires you to have liability insurance in order to to drive. If you cause a car crash, the other drivers involved can make a claim with your car insurance company. Your liability coverage, or third-party liability coverage, will pay for damage on your behalf (up to your policy’s limits). What does liability insurance cover?When it comes to car insurance, liability coverage is broken up into two parts: bodily injury liability and property damage liability.
Together, these coverages are sometimes referred to as PLPD insurance — personal injury liability and property damage. Can you get liability-only car insurance?Yes, it’s possible to get a car insurance policy that’s only liability coverage (plus anything else that’s required in your state) instead of full coverage. But even if you own your car outright or if you have an old car and you don’t need comprehensive or collision, you should still set your liability limits as high as you can afford. Since state minimum requirements are usually low, getting only the required amount of liability insurance could leave you stuck with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of bills if you’re involved in a serious accident. Compare rates and shop affordable car insurance today We don't sell your information to third parties. What is not covered by liability car insurance?Liability insurance provides a lot of protection, but there are some things it doesn’t cover, like your own injuries after a car accident or any damage to your own car. You may need to supplement your liability insurance with other types of car insurance coverage, some of which are required by law and some of which are optional. These include:
What is full-coverage car insurance? Full-coverage car insurance isn’t actually a type of policy, it’s just a term that describes car insurance that includes comprehensive and collision coverage in addition to liability. Comprehensive and collision coverage are never required by law, but they may be required if you lease or finance your car. → Read more about different types of car insurance coverage How do liability insurance coverage limits work?It can be difficult to understand just how much liability car insurance your policy includes. Usually, liability on a car insurance policy’s declarations page will be listed with slash marks or split limits, like 50/100/10. That might look confusing, but it just means you have:
Let’s say you have a policy with these limits of liability and you’re at fault for a crash involving another driver. The other driver’s medical bills only amount to $5,000, but their passenger’s come to $25,000. Since both people’s injuries total less than your policy’s $50,000 per person limit, and together equal less than $100,000, your liability insurance would pay for all costs. Depending on the company, you may be able to get auto liability insurance as a combined single limit. If you have combined single limit liability car insurance (CSL), that means your insurance company would cover damages up to a single amount instead of capping the amount one person could receive. Is there a deductible on liability car insurance? No, unlike comprehensive and collision insurance, liability insurance has no deductible that comes out of a final settlement. Is umbrella coverage a type of liability insurance?Umbrella coverage is a separate liability policy that you can buy in addition to your regular auto, home, or condo insurance. Umbrella insurance adds extra liability coverage for anything that might come up (that’s why it’s called “umbrella”). For example, if you’re in an at-fault accident and the damage you’re responsible for is thousands of dollars over your car insurance limit, your umbrella policy would step in to cover the extra costs. You can often get umbrella insurance in increments of up to $1 million. Since it’s not meant to be a form of primary insurance coverage, umbrella insurance is usually relatively cheap for the amount of protection that you’re able to buy. Not everyone needs umbrella insurance, but it may be a good idea for you if you have lots of assets you’d want to protect in case of a lawsuit, like more than one home or a boat. Certain risk factors, like owning a pool or a trampoline, might make adding umbrella insurance a good idea as well. How much liability insurance do I need?It’s not expensive to add a lot of liability coverage to your policy, so you should plan on getting as much as you can reasonably afford. We recommend limits of 100/300/100, meaning at least $100,000 of bodily injury liability insurance per person and $300,000 per accident, plus $100,000 of property damage liability insurance. Your state may only require a small amount of liability coverage in order to drive legally, but these minimum amounts offer only slim protection after an accident. With minimum amounts of liability insurance, you might have to pay the cost of serious injuries and property damage mostly on your own. If your car insurance is too expensive, try other ways to lower your rates before you reduce your liability coverage — like shopping around and comparing quotes, dropping unnecessary coverages, raising your deductible amounts, or making sure you’re getting every possible discount. What happens if I don’t have enough liability coverage?You need at least enough liability insurance to meet your state’s minimum requirements. If you’re caught driving without insurance, you’ll face steep fines and the possibility for even more serious punishments. It would also be even harder to find cheap insurance later on. But what happens if you don’t have enough liability coverage to cover the costs of an at-fault accident? Say your property damage limit is $50,000 but you cause $63,000 worth of damage in a multi-car accident. Since you don’t have enough liability insurance to pay for all that damage, you’ll be responsible for paying for the extra $13,000 out of pocket, which might mean your assets, like your home or savings, would be at risk. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about not buying enough liability insurance to drive legally. Any broker, agent, or website that you used to get quotes wouldn’t allow you to get covered if you tried to purchase less insurance than the legal minimum amounts. → Read more about how much car insurance you should get What does liability car insurance cost?The cost of liability insurance makes up the largest amount of a basic car full-coverage insurance policy. Data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners shows that the average premium for the liability insurance portion of a policy is about 54% of its total cost. [1]
Source: NAIC’s 2018-19 Auto Insurance Database Report (2022) That said, it’s very cheap to add more liability car insurance to your policy. Our research shows that increasing a policy’s liability insurance by $50,000 raises your car insurance by only $175 per year, or $15 per month. That means that every $10,000 of liability insurance costs an extra $35 per year.
Source: Policygenius analysis of data from Quadrant Information Services The cost of minimum coverage liability car insurance — a policy with the lowest legal amount of liability insurance in your state — is $51 per month, but rates can vary by company.
Cost of car insurance with the minimum amount of liability coverage. Minimum liability insurance requirements by stateEach state has its own requirements for how much liability car insurance drivers must have in order to drive legally. But no matter where you live, you should have more coverage than just your state’s minimum liability insurance requirements. Keep in mind that in addition to liability car insurance, your state may also require you to have other types of coverage, like PIP or uninsured/underinsurance motorist coverage.
Minimum amounts of bodily injury and property damage liability coverage required in every state. Compare rates and shop affordable car insurance today We don't sell your information to third parties. What is no-fault liability car insurance?Liability insurance in no-fault states works differently than in at-fault states. In no-fault states, your injuries after a car accident are paid for by your own car insurance, regardless of who was at fault. That’s why drivers in no-fault states have to have personal injury protection (PIP), which pays for your medical bills and other injury-related expenses, like lost wages. The 12 no-fault states are:
You still need car insurance liability coverage even if you live somewhere with a no-fault system. Even though each driver’s injuries are covered by their PIP coverage, severe accidents may mean you’ll need your bodily injury coverage to step in too. Unlike liability car insurance, full coverage isn’t required in any state (though it
is required if you finance or lease a car). Full coverage just means it includes comprehensive, and collision coverage in addition to liability (so it covers repairs for your own car if it’s damaged). Every driver should have liability insurance in order to protect themselves from bills for injuries and property damage after a crash. While nearly every state requires some liability insurance, it’s best to have more than your state’s minimum required amounts. Instead, every driver should
carry as much liability insurance as they can afford. An umbrella policy can help pay the costs if you’re in a car accident that exceeds your auto liability limits, but it will also cover your liability if you’re responsible for damage or injury in any other part of your life. Since getting umbrella insurance is an affordable way to increase your protection, It makes sense to consider an umbrella policy if you have a lot of assets to protect. There are only two states where you can drop your liability coverage. New Hampshire
and Virginia don’t require drivers to carry any insurance — though you have to pay a fee of $500 if you decide not to get insurance. In Florida you can drop your policy’s bodily injury liability coverage, but not your property coverage. MethodologyPolicygenius found the cost of liability insurance by analyzing hundreds of thousands of rates from every ZIP code in the country. We then compared the cost of liability car insurance with the cost of upgrading to a full or complete coverage policy. For all of these data, we used rates provided by Quadrant Information Services for a 30-year-old single driver. Our sample vehicle was a 2017 Toyota Camry LE driven 10,000 miles/year. For full coverage, we found the cost of policies with the following limits:
Some carriers may be represented by affiliates or subsidiaries. Rates provided are a sample of costs. Your actual quotes may differ. |