Auto insurance bundles liability (your responsibility for injuring others or damaging their property), uninsured/underinsured motorist (their inadequate coverage of injuring you), and physical damage (collision and comprehensive) on your own vehicle. The state-minimum limits are the legal floor for being allowed to drive and have nothing to do with actual coverage.
Liability limits. The standard notation (e.g., 100/300/100 means $100,000 per person / $300,000 per accident bodily injury / $100,000 property damage) should sit at at least 250/500/250, more practically 500/500/500 or 500/1M/500 where the carrier writes those limits, with the umbrella sitting on top. The reason is mechanical: the umbrella requires a primary policy to “attach,” and the attachment point is the underlying limit. A $10M umbrella that attaches at 100/300/100 leaves a coverage gap between the $100,000 primary limit and where the umbrella starts paying — either gap-filled by the umbrella itself (some carriers) or left exposed. Private-client carriers typically require minimum underlying limits in the 250/500/250 to 500/500/500 range as a condition of writing the umbrella.
Uninsured/underinsured motorist (UIM). Roughly one in eight US drivers is uninsured; many of those with insurance carry state-minimum limits that disappear into a single hospitalization. UIM coverage protects you and your passengers when the other driver’s liability coverage is inadequate. Match UIM limits to your own BI liability limits; under-rating UIM relative to liability is a common gap.
Physical damage. Collision and comprehensive coverage on a $40,000 daily driver is fine. On a vehicle whose value is small relative to your balance sheet, the actuarial spread the carrier needs to charge plus the cost of small claims affecting your premium history tilt toward dropping collision and comprehensive once depreciation makes a total loss a Tier 1 cash event. Keep liability and UIM at full limits regardless.
Personal Injury Protection (PIP) / medical payments. Covers medical expenses for you and your passengers regardless of fault; in no-fault states, the primary recovery channel for minor injuries. Recommended limit $50,000 minimum; PIP claims do not run through subrogation against an at-fault third party in no-fault states.
Household composition and named insureds. Three patterns warrant attention:
Adding a teen commonly doubles or triples the premium; underwriting runs on the teen’s own driving record for the first three years. Driver’s-ed completion, good-student discounts, and telematics monitoring (Drivewise, Snapshot) typically claw back 10%–20%; the underlying risk is real.
Household staff driving your vehicles need to be listed as additional drivers; an unlisted driver injuring a third party can create a coverage dispute. For full-time domestic staff, an Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI) policy sits underneath this for wage-and-hour, harassment, and wrongful-termination exposures.
These belong on agreed-value collector-car policies (Hagerty, Grundy, American Modern, Chubb), not on the daily-driver policy. Agreed value pays the agreed amount on a total loss with no depreciation; underwriting restricts mileage and use, which fits the use pattern of a weekend car.