A liability-only policy pays for the other party's injuries and property when a crash is your fault, and pays nothing for your own car. The three numbers on the declarations page, like 25/50/25, are caps in thousands of dollars: $25,000 in bodily injury coverage per person, $50,000 per crash, and $25,000 for the other driver's property.
Drop comprehensive and collision and every repair on your own vehicle is self-funded: theft, hail, deer strikes, the fender you crease in a parking garage. That trade is the entire discount. You are not buying cheaper insurance so much as buying less of it.
Liability-only is the cheapest policy a carrier will sell you, but "cheap" covers a wide range. Here is how monthly premiums tend to shake out for common profiles:
| Driver profile | State minimum | 50/100/50 liability |
|---|---|---|
| 35-year-old, clean record | $45 / mo | $58 / mo |
| 60-year-old, clean record | $40 / mo | $51 / mo |
| 45-year-old, 1 at-fault accident | $72 / mo | $88 / mo |
| 22-year-old, clean record | $95 / mo | $118 / mo |
| 19-year-old on their own policy | $140 / mo | $172 / mo |
Illustrative estimates for layout and comparison purposes; see our methodology.
Two patterns show up in nearly every quote set. Age dominates: the 19-year-old pays about 3 times what the 60-year-old pays for the same paper. And the jump from state minimum to 50/100/50 costs $11 to $32 a month across these profiles, which is small next to the extra protection it buys. Location matters almost as much as age, so check the minimums and typical rates on your state page before anchoring on any number here.
Minimum coverage is a legitimate tool, not just a corner cut. It fits when most of these are true:
A quick screen agents use: if comprehensive and collision would cost more than 10% of the car's value per year, plus you would still owe a deductible on any claim, the math favors dropping them. On a $3,000 car, $450 a year in extra premium plus a $500 deductible buys you at most $2,500 of recovery. That is a bad trade.
The failure mode is not the premium. It is the caps. A handful of states still allow property damage limits of $10,000 or less, while the average new vehicle sold in 2025 cost about $48,000. Total someone's mid-trim SUV on a 15/30/10 policy and the first $10,000 comes from your insurer; the remaining $30,000+ comes from you, by payment plan or judgment.
Injuries run worse. Recent Insurance Information Institute data puts the average bodily injury claim above $26,000, and a 2-night hospital stay can pass $50,000 before anyone mentions surgery. If you own a home, have retirement savings outside protected accounts, or earn wages that can be garnished, a minimum-limits policy leaves all of it exposed.
Two more cases where liability-only is simply unavailable or unwise: a financed or leased car, where the lender requires comprehensive and collision until payoff, and a car you rely on but could not afford to replace. Saving $60 a month means little the morning you have no way to get to work.
No. State minimum is the lowest liability limit your state allows. Liability-only just means you skip comprehensive and collision; you can still buy liability limits of 50/100/50 or 100/300/100, and the upgrade usually costs $10 to $18 a month.
No. Theft and hail live under comprehensive, and your own crash damage lives under collision. Scout has dug through a lot of policies and never found one that pays its own driver from the liability line.
Usually yes, if the car has no lien. Insurers prorate the refund on removed coverage. If a lender still holds the title, your loan contract almost always requires comprehensive and collision until payoff.