In California, all drivers are required to have at least minimum liability insurance. The minimum amount of coverage required is bodily injury liability insurance of $15,000 per person, with a total of $30,000 in coverage per accident for injuries sustained by others, and $5,000 in property damage liability insurance for physical damage done to other property, such as another driver’s vehicle.
If you’re involved in a car accident where the other driver doesn’t have auto insurance or there are injuries associated with the crash, your policy limits will quickly be maxed out. This leaves you facing the possibility of facing the prospect of paying thousands of dollars in settlement fees.
If you find yourself in a involved in a lawsuit it’s best to be prepared with insurance that protects you
While there is no such thing as an average car accident insurance settlement, you can read some of these settlements to get an idea of how quickly they can exhaust the limits of minimum liability car insurance.
At the other end of the car insurance spectrum from liability only is standard premium car insurance.
This has much higher limits than liability only and covers the cost of fixing your car, rent a car while your car is being fixed and more. The biggest difference though is that the bodily injury caps are 5 – 10X of what they are in a minimum liability policy.
Let’s take a look at the price difference between the 2 different types of policies. We surveyed 45 companies in California to get a solid understand of the difference in cost between liability only insurance and standard premium. The criteria we used was this. Insurance for a married couple with 2 cars – a Toyota Camry and a Toyota Prius. Both cars are 2 years old. Neither driver has any tickets on their license and they live in San Diego CA. and have been driving for 10+ years.
Please note that your results will vary depending upon where you live, driving record, type of car, etc.
Let’s look at the chart below at the cost difference.
| Insurance Company | Standard Premium | Liability Only |
| Access General | $3,116 | $1,057 |
| Alliance United | $2,834 | $965 |
| Allstate | $2,883 | $1,377 |
| Amica Mutual | $2,969 | $836 |
| Anchor General | $2,145 | $749 |
| California Capital | $2,764 | $708 |
| California Casualty | $2,608 | $1,485 |
| Century National | $2,276 | $1,083 |
| Civil Service Employees | $2,802 | $1,220 |
| Coast National | $3,938 | $1,336 |
| Encompass | $2,597 | $1,231 |
| Esurance | $3,245 | $1,061 |
| Everest National | $5,391 | $1,206 |
| Explorer | $2,783 | $1,498 |
| Farmers | $3,013 | $858 |
| Federal Ins (CHUBB) | $3,869 | $786 |
| Financial Indemnity | $2,608 | $1,158 |
| Government Employees Ins Co | $2,060 | $1,072 |
| Hartford | $3,320 | $1,026 |
| Horace Mann | $2,340 | $842 |
| Horace Mann Prop and Cas | $2,266 | $1,029 |
| IDS | $2,824 | $954 |
| Infinity | $1,851 | $1,609 |
| Kemper | $3,072 | $730 |
| Liberty Mutual | $4,541 | $895 |
| MAPFRE | $2,646 | $916 |
| Mercury | $2,414 | $812 |
| Metropolitan Direct | $2,252 | $1,010 |
| National General/Integon | $3,576 | $1,413 |
| Nationwide | $3,355 | $962 |
| Pacific Property & Casualty | $2,382 | $1,439 |
| Pacific Specialty | $3,625 | $1,000 |
| Permanent General | $3,405 | $804 |
| Progressive West | $2,684 | $1,224 |
| Safeco | $3,059 | $1,482 |
| Safeway | $5,796 | $1,093 |
| State Farm | $3,123 | $1,201 |
| Traveler | $2,607 | $972 |
| United Financial Cas (Progressive) | $2,388 | $745 |
| USAA | $2,169 | $1,485 |
| Victoria Fire | $4,692 | $1,305 |
| Viking | $5,060 | $788 |
| Wawanesa | $1,653 | $797 |
| Western General | $2,733 | $1,014 |
Some cases the cost differences between the 2 auto insurance policies are extreme, as much as $4,000 for Viking Insurance. Other cases the difference isn’t so much, about $900 difference for Wawanesa.
Smart people will spend more on their insurance to be insulate themselves from large crippling lawsuits. Are your assets worth protecting? If so, you’ll want much more than minimum liability car insurance.