Texas Auto Insurance Requirements: What 30/60/25 Actually Covers

Texas requires every driver to carry at least $30,000 of injury coverage per person, $60,000 per crash, and $25,000 for property damage. That is the 30/60/25 minimum. It is a legal floor rather than a sensible amount of coverage, and it is a great deal less than a serious injury costs. A driver working for a rideshare app is covered by an entirely different set of minimums — up to $1 million once a ride has been accepted.

What Texas actually requires

Every driver in Texas has to show financial responsibility, and almost everyone does it by buying liability insurance. The required minimum is written into Section 601.072 of the Transportation Code, and it has three parts:

• $30,000 for bodily injury to one person in a crash.
• $60,000 for bodily injury to everyone in a crash, in total.
• $25,000 for damage to someone else’s property.

Shorthand: 30/60/25. The Texas Department of Insurance publishes the same figures in its consumer guide.

Two things about that middle number surprise people. It is a ceiling for the whole crash, not a payment to each person, so if four people in a car are hurt they are dividing $60,000 between them. And all of it is liability coverage, which means it pays other people for harm the policyholder caused. It does nothing for the policyholder’s own injuries.

The amounts have not changed since January 1, 2011. Medical costs have.

What 30/60/25 covers in a real crash

Thirty thousand dollars sounds like a lot until you price out a single bad day.

An ambulance ride, an emergency room visit, a CT scan and an MRI can consume a large share of $30,000 before anyone has discussed surgery, physical therapy or a day of missed work. If the injury turns out to need surgery, the minimum policy is exhausted long before the treatment is finished.

That is the honest shape of it. The Texas minimum is adequate for a low-speed wreck with bruising and a repair bill. It is not adequate for a broken bone, a disc injury or anything requiring an operating room — and it is the coverage a significant share of drivers on Houston freeways are carrying, because it is the cheapest lawful option.

Which raises the question nobody thinks about until it happens: if the person who hits you carries exactly the minimum and your bills are three times that, where does the rest come from?

The $2,500 you may not know you have

Start with your own policy, because there is probably something in it you have forgotten about.

Under Section 1952.152 of the Insurance Code, an insurer cannot issue an auto policy in Texas without including personal injury protection. It is in your policy by default. It only comes out if you rejected it in writing. Section 1952.153 then caps what the insurer is obliged to provide at $2,500 per person, which is why that is the figure most policies carry.

PIP is quietly useful. It pays your medical bills and a portion of lost income regardless of who caused the crash, and it pays early rather than at the end of a settlement. It is not much money, but it arrives when nothing else has.

Pull out your declarations page and look. Most people genuinely do not know whether they have it, and it is one line on the page. While you are there, it is worth understanding who actually pays your medical bills after a Texas crash, because the answer is rarely the person who hit you, and rarely quickly.

The coverage that matters most, and the trap inside it

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage — UM/UIM — is the part of your policy that steps in when the driver who hurt you has no insurance, or not enough of it. For a serious injury caused by a minimum-limits driver, it is usually the difference between being made whole and not.

Section 1952.101 requires every insurer to offer it, at least at the Chapter 601 limits. You are allowed to turn it down. The rejection has to be in writing.

Here is the part that catches people, and it is worth reading twice. Under subsection (c), once you have rejected that coverage in writing, the insurer is not required to offer it again on any renewal or reinstated policy. The rejection carries forward silently, year after year, unless you write to them and ask for the coverage back.

So somebody who declined UM/UIM in 2019 to save a few dollars a month has almost certainly not been offered it since, and may well believe they have it. They find out they do not in the week they need it most.

It costs very little. If you do nothing else after reading this, check that line on your declarations page.

When the other driver’s minimum is not enough

If you are already hurt and the at-fault driver turns out to have 30/60/25, the liability policy is not the end of the inquiry. It is the beginning of it.

• Your own UM/UIM coverage, if you have it, sits on top of theirs.
• Another liable party. If the driver was working at the time, their employer may be responsible. If the vehicle belonged to someone else, that can matter. A commercial vehicle changes the picture entirely — those policies start far higher than 30/60/25, which is why a truck case is a different kind of case.
• Your health insurance, which almost always pays less for the same treatment than a provider billing an injury claim.
• A letter of protection, if you have no health coverage at all. It gets you treated now and is paid from the settlement — but read what one actually commits you to before signing.

Two other things are worth doing early, because they are easier now than later. Get a copy of the CR-3 crash report, which names every driver, vehicle and insurer involved. And if an adjuster calls asking to record you, know what that conversation is for before you agree to it.

Fault also decides all of this, because Texas is not a no-fault state. Nobody pays until responsibility is assigned, and if you are found more than half at fault you recover nothing at all.

Questions people actually ask

This article is general information about Texas auto insurance requirements. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.