Minimum car insurance requirements in Maine

Maine law sets a hard floor on the insurance you have to carry to put a car on the road. If you were just in a crash and you're trying to figure out what coverage should have been in place, or you're shopping for a policy and don't want to guess, here are the exact numbers, where each one comes from, and the gaps the state minimum leaves open.

The short version: 50/100/25 in liability, at least $2,000 in medical payments, $500 for towing and storage, and uninsured-motorist protection that usually matches your liability limits.

The liability limits every driver must carry

Maine requires the owner or operator of any vehicle registered in the state to maintain liability coverage of at least $50,000 for bodily injury to one person, $100,000 for total bodily injury per accident, and $25,000 for property damage.¹ Agents write that as 50/100/25. The Maine Bureau of Insurance lists the same figures and adds that a single combined limit of $125,000 also satisfies the requirement.²

Liability coverage is money for the other people involved when you cause a crash. It pays their medical bills and repairs up to your limits. It does nothing for your own injuries or your own vehicle, which trips up a lot of drivers who assume 'full coverage' is baked into the state minimum. It isn't.

Maine's 50/100 bodily injury floor is higher than the 25/50 many states still allow, but $50,000 per person goes quickly once an ambulance ride and a hospital stay are added up. The Bureau of Insurance says as much, warning that minimum limits may not be enough to protect you if you cause a serious crash.²

Mandatory medical payments coverage

On top of liability, every standard Maine auto policy has to include medical payments coverage of at least $2,000 per person.³ It covers medical costs you and your passengers run up within one year of the crash, and it pays no matter who was at fault.³ On a standard personal auto policy there's no option to reject it.³

Two thousand dollars is not a lot, and it's easy to misread what this coverage is. It is not no-fault PIP. Maine has no true no-fault system, so this small pot of first-dollar medical money sits inside an at-fault framework, and it runs out fast. Treat it as a bridge to your health insurance or to a claim against the at-fault driver, not as your main source of recovery.

Towing and storage coverage you may not know you have

Maine goes a step further than most states and requires at least $500 per accident for reasonable towing and storage charges after a crash.⁴ It's a small line item, but if your car gets towed from the scene and then sits in a lot racking up daily storage fees, this coverage is there. Like the medical payments requirement, it applies to standard personal policies rather than large commercial fleets.⁴

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage

This is the requirement that protects you from everyone else's bad decisions. Maine makes uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage mandatory, and by default it has to equal the bodily injury liability limits you chose.⁵ So if you carry 100/300 in liability, your UM/UIM comes in at 100/300 unless you actively opt down.

You can reduce it, but only in writing. The rejection has to be on a form the insurer provides, signed and dated by you, with statutory disclosure language, before it takes effect.⁵ And there's a floor you can't go below no matter what: UM/UIM can never drop under the state minimum bodily injury limits of 50/100.⁵ The Bureau of Insurance frames it the same way, noting your UM limit must equal your liability limit if that limit is higher than the minimum, unless you reject the higher amount in writing.²

UM/UIM matters more in Maine than the fine print suggests. If the driver who hit you carried only the state minimum, or nothing at all, this is often the coverage that actually pays your injury claim.

Maine is an at-fault state, and fault gets split

Maine handles crashes on an at-fault basis: the driver responsible for the wreck, through their liability insurer, pays for the harm they caused.² There's no no-fault PIP system standing between you and a claim against the person who hit you.⁶

Fault can be shared, and how it's shared decides whether you recover anything. Maine uses a modified comparative negligence rule. If you're found partly to blame, your damages are reduced by your share of the fault, and if the jury finds you equally at fault or more, you recover nothing at all.⁷ In plain terms, 50% is the cliff: cross it and a reduced recovery becomes no recovery, which is why the way fault gets assigned after a crash is worth taking seriously.

You also don't have forever to act. Maine's statute of limitations gives you six years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury or property damage lawsuit.⁸ That's longer than most states allow, but insurers work on their own timelines and evidence gets stale, so it's not a reason to wait.

What happens if you drive without insurance

Driving a registered vehicle in Maine without the required coverage is a traffic infraction. The forfeiture runs from $100 to $500.⁹ The bigger consequence is administrative. Thirty days after the state receives an abstract of the adjudication, the Secretary of State suspends both your driver's license and the registration of the vehicle, and the suspension stays in place until you file proof of financial responsibility.⁹ If you can't show evidence of insurance when an officer demands it, that failure is treated as prima facie evidence that you were uninsured.⁹

Are the state minimums enough

For a fender-bender, maybe. For anything serious, often not. A single hospital stay can blow past $50,000, and at that point an at-fault driver carrying only the minimum leaves the injured person chasing the difference in a personal lawsuit. Maine winters raise the stakes further: the state sees heavy snowfall and long stretches of freezing weather, and winter road conditions push crash frequency and severity up.¹⁰ Collision and comprehensive coverage aren't required by law, but they're what pay to fix or replace your own car after a wreck, a slide-off, or storm damage.

If your car was damaged and you're worried about what it's worth on resale even after a proper repair, that's a separate claim worth understanding; see our guide to diminished value in Maine. If you need the official write-up of your wreck, start with Maine crash reports. And if the coverage in play won't cover your injuries, or fault is being pinned on you unfairly, it's worth talking to a lawyer; you can find one through our legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Maine Revised Statutes, 29-A M.R.S. Section 1605 (required minimum motor vehicle liability coverage). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec1605.html

2. Maine Bureau of Insurance, Insurance Required by Law. https://www.maine.gov/pfr/insurance/consumers/auto-insurance/insurance-required-by-law

3. Maine Revised Statutes, 29-A M.R.S. Section 1605-A (mandatory medical payments coverage). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec1605-A.html

4. Maine Revised Statutes, 29-A M.R.S. Section 1605-B (towing and storage coverage). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec1605-B.html

5. Maine Revised Statutes, 24-A M.R.S. Section 2902 (uninsured vehicle coverage). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/24-a/title24-Asec2902.html

6. Maine Bureau of Insurance, A Consumer's Guide to Personal Auto Insurance. https://www.maine.gov/pfr/insurance/sites/maine.gov.pfr.insurance/files/inline-files/12.6.24Consumers%20Guide%20to%20Personal%20Auto%20Insurance.pdf

7. Maine Revised Statutes, 14 M.R.S. Section 156 (comparative negligence). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec156.html

8. Maine Revised Statutes, 14 M.R.S. Section 752 (six-year limitation on civil actions). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec752.html

9. Maine Revised Statutes, 29-A M.R.S. Section 1601 (required maintenance of financial responsibility; penalties). https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec1601.html

10. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information / NCICS, Maine State Climate Summary. https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/me/