Liability-only car insurance pays for what you do to other people: their injuries and their property, up to the limits printed on your policy, when a crash is your fault. It never pays to repair or replace your own car, and in most states it doesn't pay your own medical bills either. It is the cheapest policy you can legally drive on almost everywhere, which is why it gets sold as "minimum coverage," and that label hides a second fact: in 15 of our 34 state guides, the legal minimum policy includes something besides liability.
What liability-only coverage pays for
A liability-only policy is two coverages with one job: paying the people you hurt and the property you damage.
- Bodily injury liability pays the medical bills, lost wages and pain-and-suffering claims of people injured in a crash you cause, and it pays the lawyer who defends you if they sue. It has two limits: a cap per injured person and a cap per accident.
- Property damage liability pays to repair or replace what you hit: the other car, a fence, a light pole, a storefront. One limit, per accident.
The limits are written as three numbers. Oregon's minimum, 25/50/20, means $25,000 for any one person's injuries, $50,000 for everyone's injuries in one crash, and $20,000 for property damage. Those caps are the whole promise. Total a $35,000 SUV on a 25/50/20 policy and the insurer pays $20,000; the other $15,000 is yours, and the other driver's insurer can pursue you for it. That is why every state guide on this site says the same thing about minimum limits: they are the floor for driving legally, not a measure of what a crash costs. Our state minimum coverage guide walks through what happens when a claim runs past them.
What it never pays for
Everything on this list is a separate coverage, which is the point of the "only":
- Your own car. Collision pays to fix it after a crash, whoever was at fault; comprehensive pays for theft, hail, flood, fire, a falling branch or a deer. Neither is in a liability-only policy. Our comprehensive vs. collision explainer covers where the line between the two sits.
- Your own injuries. In an at-fault state, your liability coverage pays the other driver's hospital, not yours. Your health insurance does, or personal injury protection or medical payments coverage if you carry them, or the other driver's liability policy if the crash was their fault and they have one.
- The driver who hit you and had no insurance. That is uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, and about one driver in seven nationally (15.4% in 2023, per the Insurance Research Council) has none. Our uninsured motorist explainer covers how it pays.
- A rental while your car is in the shop, a tow, or the gap between a loan balance and a totaled car's value. Add-ons, every one. Our full-coverage explainer lists what the usual bundle includes and leaves out.
"Liability-only" and "state minimum" aren't the same thing
Shoppers use the two phrases interchangeably, and rate tables usually do too. In about half the country they mean the same policy. In the other half, the state has written other coverages into the minimum, so the cheapest legal policy there is liability plus something, and its price reflects it. From our own state guides:
| State | Minimum liability | What the minimum policy must also include |
|---|---|---|
| Oregon | 25/50/20 | PIP $15,000; uninsured and underinsured motorist 25/50 |
| Minnesota | 30/60/10 | PIP $40,000; uninsured and underinsured motorist 25/50 |
| New York | 25/50/10 | PIP $50,000; uninsured motorist 25/50 |
| Maryland | 30/60/15 | Uninsured/underinsured motorist 30/60/15; $2,500 PIP unless waived in writing |
| New Jersey | 35/70/25 (standard policy) | PIP $15,000; uninsured/underinsured motorist matching the liability limits |
| Massachusetts | 25/50/30 | PIP $8,000; uninsured motorist 25/50 |
| Michigan | 50/100/10 | PIP, unlimited medical by default with lower options; $1 million property protection for in-state damage |
| Delaware | 25/50/10 | PIP $15,000 per person / $30,000 per accident; uninsured motorist unless rejected in writing |
| Florida | $10,000 property damage only | PIP $10,000; no bodily injury liability required at all |
| North Carolina | 50/100/50 | Uninsured/underinsured motorist equal to the bodily injury limits |
| Illinois | 25/50/20 | Uninsured motorist bodily injury 25/50 |
| Connecticut | 25/50/25 | Uninsured/underinsured motorist 25/50 |
| Missouri | 25/50/25 | Uninsured motorist bodily injury 25/50 |
| South Carolina | 25/50/25 | Uninsured motorist 25/50 bodily injury and $25,000 property damage |
| West Virginia | 25/50/25 | Uninsured motorist 25/50 bodily injury and $25,000 property damage |
Source: each state's rules as published in our state guides, which take them from the state's statutes and regulator. Limits read bodily injury per person / per accident / property damage, in thousands.
A second group puts the extra coverage in the policy by default and lets you take it out in writing: Kentucky (PIP and uninsured motorist, as a choice no-fault state), Texas ($2,500 PIP and uninsured/underinsured motorist up to your liability limits), Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana and Mississippi (uninsured motorist) and Washington (PIP). Nationally, 20 states and the District of Columbia make uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage mandatory, per the Insurance Information Institute's December 2023 tally of state financial responsibility laws.
Two things follow. First, a "liability-only" quote in Oregon or Minnesota already includes coverages that cost extra in Ohio or Tennessee, so cross-state comparisons of minimum-coverage prices are partly comparisons of what the minimum contains. Second, if you're in the written-rejection group, the cheapest quote you see may have been built by removing the coverage that pays you; ask before you sign.
What liability-only costs
Nationally, liability-only coverage averages about $99 a month against $187 for full coverage, according to Insurify's November 2026 rate data, so the typical driver who drops collision and comprehensive saves about $88 a month. The step is smaller at the cheapest carriers than at the average: in our new Oregon guide, State Farm prices minimum coverage at $56 a month and full coverage at $87, a $31 step, while the state's averages are $91 and $157. Our full-coverage explainer tables the liability-to-full step in 30 of our state guides, from $35 to $121 a month.
What you pay for liability-only has little to do with the limits you pick and a lot to do with you: your record, your age, your ZIP code and, in most states, your credit history move a liability premium far more than the difference between 25/50/20 and 50/100/50 does. Our rate-factors guide ranks them. That is the quiet argument for buying more liability than the state requires: the coverage you're adding is the cheap part of the bill.
When liability-only makes sense
Dropping collision and comprehensive is a bet that you can absorb the loss of the car. It's a reasonable bet when:
- You own the car outright. A lender or lessor will require collision and comprehensive for as long as they have an interest in it, so this question only arises once the title is yours.
- The car is worth less than a few years of collision and comprehensive premiums, after the deductible. A $1,000 deductible on a $4,000 car means the most a collision claim can ever pay you is $3,000, and you'd pay for that coverage every six months whether you use it or not.
- Losing the car tomorrow would be an inconvenience, not a crisis. If you'd need to finance a replacement, you'd be borrowing to replace something you chose not to insure.
It's the wrong bet for a new or financed car, for a car you couldn't replace from savings, and for drivers in high-theft areas or states with a lot of uninsured drivers, where the losses most likely to find you are exactly the ones liability-only excludes.
Even when liability-only is right, two upgrades usually belong with it. Raise the liability limits above the state floor, because a 25/50 policy can be exhausted by one serious injury and the rest of the judgment follows you. And keep, or add, the coverages that pay you rather than the other driver: uninsured/underinsured motorist, and medical payments or PIP where your state leaves them optional. Dropping your own car's coverage is a decision about a $4,000 asset; dropping those is a decision about your medical bills.
How to buy it right
- Quote the same limits everywhere. One carrier's "minimum" quote isn't comparable to another's 50/100/50. Decide the limits first, then compare.
- Price the next limit up. Ask for the state minimum and for 50/100/50 or 100/300/100 side by side; the difference is usually small enough to decide on the spot.
- Don't sign away what pays you. In the written-rejection states, the form that removes uninsured motorist or PIP coverage is what makes the cheapest quote cheap. Our uninsured motorist explainer covers how Texas and Oklahoma handle it.
- No car, still driving? A non-owner liability policy covers you behind the wheel of a car you don't own; our non-owner insurance guide covers who needs one.
- Filing an SR-22? The certificate proves you carry at least the state's minimum liability coverage; liability-only is usually what gets filed. Our SR-22 explainer covers the form.
- Compare before you renew, not after. See what your own profile prices at with the limits you actually want, and check our cheapest-companies page for the carriers that lead your state.
Liability-only is a legitimate way to insure an older car you could afford to lose. It is a poor way to insure yourself. Price both versions before you decide which one you're buying.
State rules from our state guides for the states named, which cite each state's statutes and regulator; the Oregon rules per ORS 806.070, 742.502 and 742.520. The count of states with mandatory uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage from the Insurance Information Institute's "Automobile Financial Responsibility Limits by State" table (as of December 2023). National uninsured share from the Insurance Research Council's 2023 estimate via the Insurance Information Institute. National liability-only and full-coverage averages from Insurify's rate data (November 2026); Oregon figures from our Oregon guide (quote data current as of November 1, 2026); the liability-to-full step by state from our full-coverage explainer (October 2026). Coverage descriptions are general; policy terms vary by insurer and state.