Texas car insurance at a glance
| Requirement | Texas rule |
|---|---|
| Minimum liability | $30,000/$60,000/$25,000 (30/60/25) |
| Fault system | At-fault (tort) |
| Uninsured motorist | Not required, included unless rejected in writing |
| SR-22 | Required for two years after DUI, driving uninsured, or suspension |
What Texas requires by law
Texas requires 30/60/25 liability coverage: $30,000 for one injured person, $60,000 for everyone injured in a crash, and $25,000 for property damage. Two coverages, uninsured/underinsured motorist and personal injury protection, are automatically part of a Texas policy unless you reject them in writing. Insurers hand you those rejection forms like they are routine paperwork. They are not. They are the most consequential signatures in the transaction.
Enforcement runs through TexasSure, which electronically matches every registered vehicle to an active policy. Driving uninsured brings fines that escalate with each offense, surcharges, possible impoundment, and a two-year SR-22 requirement.
Are the minimums enough? In the land of the full-size truck, no. The average new pickup costs well over the $25,000 property damage limit, and Texas highways move fast enough that injury claims regularly clear $30,000 on the first hospital invoice. Minimum coverage is what you buy to make the registration legal. It is not what you buy to protect a house, a savings account, or a paycheck. If you have any of those, price 100/300/100 before settling.
What drives premiums in Texas
- Hail. Texas leads the nation in hail claims, with the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex sitting in the bullseye. One spring storm can damage tens of thousands of vehicles in an afternoon.
- Hurricanes and flooding. From Houston to the Valley, storm surge and flood events total vehicles in bulk, and comprehensive pricing carries the memory.
- Big-metro density. Houston, DFW, Austin, and San Antonio account for enormous crash volumes, with congestion, construction, and high speed limits compounding severity.
- Uninsured drivers. Despite TexasSure, a meaningful share of Texas drivers carry no insurance, which is exactly why the UM rejection form deserves a second read before signing.
How to pay less in Texas
- Compare quotes every renewal. The Texas market is huge and volatile; carriers reprice constantly and the spread between them is real money.
- Keep UM/UIM and PIP, raise deductibles instead. Cutting the coverages that protect you from other people is the wrong place to find savings.
- Raise your comprehensive deductible if you garage your car, and keep comprehensive itself; in hail country it is the most-used line on the policy.
- Check your vehicle’s insurance cost before you buy it. Trucks and SUVs with expensive parts and high theft appeal cost more to insure in Texas than drivers expect.
- Maintain continuous coverage. TexasSure catches lapses fast, and the surcharge era that follows costs more than the skipped premium.
The full playbook lives in how to lower your premium, with the limits of cheap covered in our cheapest coverage guide.
For the fundamentals, start at the auto insurance hub, then compare Texas quotes side by side. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the gap between the best and worst quote for the same driver.