With the enactment of Act H.5111 on July 1, 2025, Massachusetts increased the state minimum car insurance requirements for bodily injury liability and property damage coverage that had been in place for nearly four decades.
Article Highlights:
- Effective July 1, 2025, Massachusetts increased its state minimum car insurance requirements that had been in place for nearly 40 years.
- The three coverage areas that have changed are Bodily Injury to Others, Bodily Injury Caused by Uninsured Auto, and Damage to Someone Else’s Property.
- The primary goal of these new, higher limits is to provide Massachusetts drivers with better financial protection and reduce out-of-pocket expenses in the event of a car accident.
- These updated requirements apply to all personal and business vehicles, and policies issued or renewed after the effective date.
- While insurance companies should automatically increase coverage amounts when issuing or renewing a policy, vehicle owners should check their policy declaration page to ensure amounts comply with these new minimums or contact their local insurance professional for assistance.
The last time our state’s auto insurance limits were reset was in 1988, back when we listened to our favorite tunes on cassette tapes, dialed up the internet, saved computer files on floppy disks, relied on paper maps for directions and landline phones for communication, and looked “rad” in our acid-wash jeans, neon blazers, and big hair.
Since then, clearly a lot has changed, and for the better. But, up until recently, Massachusetts’s minimum car insurance requirements could not be included among things keeping up with the times.
Now that the state has finally made the move to revise these auto insurance limits, what does it mean for Massachusetts drivers like you? Morse, of course, is here with information to help you understand these new coverage mandates and how to make sure you’re in compliance.
Comparing the State’s Previous Compulsory Auto Insurance Limits to the New Limits
While there are four mandatory coverage areas in a Massachusetts car insurance policy, the new requirements focus on increasing the limits for three of them: Bodily Injury to Others, Bodily Injury Caused by Uninsured Auto, and Damage to Someone Else’s Property.
First, let’s look at where these bodily injury liability and property damage limits have stood for the past 40 years:
- Bodily Injury to Others, $20,000 per person and $40,000 per accident
- Bodily Injury Caused by Uninsured Auto, $20,000 per person and $40,000 per accident
- Damage to Someone Else’s Property, $5,000 per accident
It might be worth pausing for a minute to review how these three coverage areas work and why they are so important.
If you’re found to be the at-fault party in a car accident, the Bodily Injury to Others portion of your auto policy is what typically helps pay for costs associated with injuries to other people involved in the accident. In the same at-fault situation, it’s the Property Damage portion of your car insurance policy that typically helps cover the cost of repairs to other people’s cars or other property you may have hit, like someone’s fence, lawn, or house.
Bodily Injury Caused by an Uninsured Auto, also called Uninsured Motorist Coverage, on the other hand, comes into play if you’re in a car accident caused by another driver. If that person does not have insurance or left the scene of the crash without providing their information, Uninsured Motorist Coverage typically helps cover your medical expenses.
These three coverages provide you and other drivers with critical financial protection in the event of a car accident. So, many states require minimum bodily injury liability and property damage coverage limits, review them regularly, and update them over time to keep up with costs associated with being in a crash. In fact, in 2025, Massachusetts became the fifth state to increase its car insurance requirements.
Speaking of which, here, at long last, are the new mandatory bodily injury and property damage car insurance limits for Massachusetts vehicle owners:
- Bodily Injury to Others, $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident
- Bodily Injury Caused by Uninsured Auto, $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident
- Damage to Someone Else’s Property, $30,000 per accident
(If you’re curious, it’s Personal Injury Protection that will stay the same at $8,000 per person.)
There are no exemptions from these new bodily injury liability and property damage limits. They apply to your vehicle, whether it’s a private passenger or commercial automobile, and on any policy written or renewing on or after July 1, 2025.
Why Massachusetts Changed Its Car Insurance Requirements
These new limits may seem like a significant change, particularly the 500% increase in the property damage limit. However, this big jump reflects how outdated Massachusetts’s limits had become.
Vehicle repairs, medical care, legal fees, and other potential crash-related expenses are substantially higher than they were five years ago, not to mention what they were in 1988. The 40-year-old minimum requirements were putting many car owners at risk. If they were in an accident, they could have inadequate insurance to cover the associated costs, potentially leaving them to fill the gap with their own funds.
Adjusting Massachusetts’s car insurance limits was an important step toward making sure more drivers have better financial protection—and less financial stress—if they’re in a car accident.
However, it’s important to remember that these requirements are only the state’s mandatory minimums, and not necessarily what your local insurance professional would recommend. At Morse, we feel strongly that these limits are not sufficient to adequately safeguard most car owners and their vehicles, and we often suggest even higher limits to make sure our clients are well protected.
Additionally, Massachusetts’s car insurance requirements do not include coverage for many expenses that could end up costing you a lot of money out of pocket, like repairing or replacing your car if it’s damaged or stolen, having your vehicle towed, renting a substitute vehicle, and more. Feel free to contact a Morse professional for information about a variety of optional, yet very valuable, car insurance solutions.
How to Comply with the State’s New Car Insurance Requirements
Technically, there is nothing you should have to do. While your insurance company may not directly notify you of these changes, they are responsible for making sure your policy follows these new limits when it is issued or renewed. However, it’s always wise to check that your policy’s declaration page has the appropriate coverages and amounts, just in case!
Of course, if you work with the team at Morse, we’re going to double- and triple-check your car insurance policy for compliance with these revised limits. In addition, if these higher minimum car insurance requirements result in a higher policy premium at renewal time, we’ll do our due diligence to help you find savings opportunities that may offset this increased cost, including uncovering your eligible car insurance discounts and credits.
Please give the Morse team a call today with any additional questions you have about the new state minimum car insurance limits and how they might impact a new or renewing auto policy.