In Texas, just like in every other state except two, you must have vehicular insurance to drive, along with a valid driver’s license. You don’t need insurance in New Hampshire and Virginia. You should also know how much insurance you need in Texas before you get behind the wheel.
In this article, we’ll talk about what insurance you need if you’re going to drive in Texas. You require this information if you’re moving there or you’re about to get your license and anticipate driving regularly.
How Much Insurance Do You Need in Texas to Drive?
Texas drivers must have $30,000 in insurance coverage. More specifically, though, you must have that much liability coverage.
Liability coverage helps you if you damage someone else’s property while driving or you injure someone. This coverage may come into play if you hit someone while they are crossing the street or if you strike a cyclist who you didn’t see.
You need liability coverage in Texas because if the court system or an insurance company finds you at fault after an accident, that is the money you’ll count on to cover the damages.
If you don’t have at least $30K in liability insurance, you can’t legally drive. If you strike a person or cause some other kind of damage, you must potentially pay for that out of pocket, which can devastate you if you have little or no savings.
What Other Insurance Do You Need to Drive in Texas?
Texas also has in place what some individuals in personal injury law call the 30/60/25 rule. That means you should have $30K in liability coverage that you can use if you injure another person. However, you should also have up to $60K in coverage for vehicular damage and up to $25K in property damage.
You can shop among many different policies and companies in Texas to get a policy that hits this 30/60/25 threshold. However, you can also get more expensive policies that will cover you for more than that.
Why Would You Get a Policy That Covers You for More Than the Minimum?
If you think about it for a moment, it might seem like having $30K in coverage for injury to a person, $60 for a vehicular collision, and $25K in coverage for property damage would be more than enough in most instances where you make a driving mistake. However, let us imagine a scenario for a moment where that is not the case.
Perhaps you lose control of your car while driving through a residential neighborhood. Your vehicle careens through someone’s yard and hits their porch. You also hit the home’s resident, who’s sitting on that porch at the time and can’t move out of the way fast enough.
You can easily cause more than $25K in damage to the house and more than $30K in damage to the person you hit with the car. Think about how expensive medical procedures can get. If you broke a couple of the homeowner’s bones, and they need surgery to repair them, it’s not unrealistic at all to think that the hospital bills would amount to more than $30K.
That’s why you might want to get a policy that covers you for more than the required 30/60/25. Of course, more expensive policies will cost more, but you might find it’s worth it if you think about what can happen if this kind of catastrophic accident occurs when you’re driving in Texas.
Other Scenarios Where You Might Need More Than the Minimum Insurance Amount
If you get the minimum required insurance amount, other situations might arise where that backfires. Maybe you’re not paying attention when you’re driving during rush hour.
The car in front of you slams on the brakes because they’re approaching an intersection, and they suddenly realize they can’t make it through the yellow light. You’re following too closely behind and hit their rear bumper.
That forces the other driver’s vehicle into the intersection, causing a multiple-car wreck. In such an instance, the legal system will hold you liable since you didn’t stop in time and set off the whole sequence of events.
Since you caused damage to multiple cars, it’s not unrealistic to think that you’ll need more than $30K in coverage for the individuals involved and more than $60K in repairs to their vehicles. A single high-end car that you buy in total can cost upwards of $60K all by itself.
Should You Get the Minimum Insurance Amount in Texas or More?
In a sense, any time you decide on a particular insurance policy, you’re gambling. If you live in Texas and feel like you’re an excellent driver, you might think that getting a policy that has the 30/60/25 structure in place should more than cover you.
However, you should also remember that a single time you forget to use your turn signal could cause an accident that uses every bit of that policy’s coverage and more. If you want more coverage, you can get it, but it will cost more money.
Maybe you wish you could get a policy with more than the minimum coverage, but you simply don’t have the money to do it. Living in Texas gets expensive quickly, and inflation keeps increasing the cost of goods and services. If you can barely afford rent, then getting the minimum insurance amount on your vehicle’s policy may be your only viable option.
In any case, if you’re going to drive in Texas, you must make sure you have that minimum coverage amount in place. If the police pull you over and find that you don’t have any coverage or your policy doesn’t cover the necessary amount, they can take away your license.
If that happens, you can’t get to work, to the grocery store, or anywhere else you might need to go. Texas doesn’t have the most demanding car insurance laws, but you must adhere to the ones they have in place.
