Minimum car insurance requirements in Utah

If you drive in Utah, state law sets a floor for the coverage you have to carry, and that floor moved up recently. What's on your policy matters most in the days after a crash, when the limits on your declarations page decide how much money is actually there to pay for injuries and repairs.

A standard Utah passenger-car policy has to include four things: liability coverage, personal injury protection (PIP), uninsured motorist coverage, and underinsured motorist coverage. Liability and PIP are always there. The uninsured and underinsured pieces are included automatically too, unless you sign a written form to drop them or lower them ¹.

The liability limits, now 30/65/25

The Utah Insurance Department puts the baseline simply: every car in the state has to carry at least bodily injury and property damage liability coverage ². The statute sets the exact numbers. For any policy issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2025, the minimum is $30,000 for injury to or death of one person, $65,000 for two or more people hurt in the same accident, and $25,000 for property damage ³. Insurance agents write this as 30/65/25.

Those limits went up at the start of 2025. Through December 31, 2024, the floor was 25/65/15, so the per-person injury minimum rose by $5,000 and the property damage minimum by $10,000 ³. Utah also lets you satisfy the requirement with one combined single limit instead of split limits, but that figure has to be at least $90,000 per accident, up from $80,000 under the old rule ³. If you had a policy with the old limits, it renewed into the new ones automatically at your first 2025 renewal.

Liability pays for the people you injure and the property you damage when a crash is your fault. It does nothing for your own injuries or your own vehicle.

Personal injury protection

Utah is a no-fault state for medical bills, which is why PIP rides on nearly every car policy ¹. PIP pays your own medical costs after a crash regardless of who caused it. The required minimum is $3,000 per person for reasonable medical, surgical, dental, hospital, rehabilitation, ambulance, and nursing care ⁴. Utah bars any deductible on this coverage, so the full $3,000 is available from the first dollar of treatment ⁴.

PIP covers more than medicine. It replaces lost income at the lesser of $250 a week or 85% of your gross earnings, for up to 52 weeks ⁴. It pays up to $20 a day, for as long as a year, for household work you can't do because of your injuries ⁴. It adds a $1,500 funeral benefit and a $3,000 death benefit payable to a person's heirs ⁴. The coverage reaches the named insured, resident family members, passengers, and even pedestrians struck by the car ⁵.

Your insurer can't sit on these benefits. PIP is overdue if the company fails to pay within 30 days after it receives reasonable proof of the loss, and overdue amounts run interest at 1.5% a month ⁶.

Motorcycles are the big exception. Utah does not require PIP on a motorcycle, off-highway vehicle, street-legal ATV, trailer, or semitrailer ¹. Riders should know that if they're hurt, there is no motorcycle PIP to fall back on for their own medical bills.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage

This is where a lot of Utah drivers quietly leave themselves exposed. Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage and underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage both come standard, at limits that match your liability limits ⁷⁸. UM pays when the driver who hit you had no insurance at all. UIM fills the gap when that driver had a policy, but not enough to cover what you're owed.

You're allowed to reject either coverage or buy it at a lower limit, but only by signing a written form from your insurer ⁷⁸. If you never signed one, you almost certainly carry UM and UIM equal to your liability limits. Even by rejection, UM can't be sold below the state's minimum bodily injury limits ⁷, and UIM can't drop below $10,000 per person and $20,000 per accident ⁸.

Because so many drivers carry nothing more than the legal minimum, UM and UIM are often the coverages that actually pay when someone is seriously hurt. They usually cost far less than people expect, so it's worth a hard look before signing anything that lowers them.

What the minimum really buys

Utah's no-fault system routes your early medical bills through your own PIP, and it puts a gate in front of suing the at-fault driver for pain and suffering. You can bring that kind of general-damages claim only if your medical expenses pass $3,000, or you suffered death, dismemberment, permanent disability or impairment, permanent disfigurement, or a bone fracture ⁶. That gate doesn't apply when you're pursuing an uninsured motorist claim ⁶.

The $25,000 property damage minimum is the piece that most often falls short. Replacing a late-model vehicle can cost more than that, and the figure ignores the diminished value your car loses even after a clean repair. Liability property damage pays for the other person's property, not yours, so your own collision coverage and the at-fault driver's limits are what decide the fate of your car.

Penalties for driving without insurance

You have to keep owner's or operator's security in force any time your vehicle is on a Utah road ⁹. Driving without it is a class C misdemeanor. Many sources call it a class B misdemeanor, but that heavier charge actually applies to showing false proof of coverage, not to simply being uninsured ¹⁰. A first conviction carries a fine of at least $400, though the court can trim up to $300 of it if you get insured after the ticket but before sentencing ¹⁰. A second or later offense within three years brings a fine of at least $1,000 ¹⁰. Beyond the fine, the Department of Public Safety suspends your driver license and makes you keep proof of insurance on file for three years ¹⁰.

There's a civil cost as well. An owner who has no coverage in place at the time of a crash loses Utah's no-fault tort protection and becomes personally on the hook for the PIP-style benefits an injured person would otherwise have collected ¹¹.

If a minimum-limits driver hit you

Utah's minimums are a legal floor. They aren't a gauge of what a real injury costs. When the driver who hit you carried only 30/65/25 and your bills climb past those numbers, your own UIM coverage and the fine print of both policies decide what you can recover. An attorney who handles Utah crash claims can read every coverage on the table and track down policies you might not know exist. You can start with the thatcarhitme.com legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Utah Code § 31A-22-302, Required components of motor vehicle insurance policies. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title31A/Chapter22/31A-22-S302.html

2. Utah Insurance Department, Auto Insurance. https://insurance.utah.gov/consumers/auto/

3. Utah Code § 31A-22-304, Motor vehicle liability policy minimum limits. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title31A/Chapter22/31A-22-S304.html

4. Utah Code § 31A-22-307, Personal injury protection coverages and benefits. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title31A/Chapter22/31A-22-S307.html

5. Utah Code § 31A-22-308, Persons covered by personal injury protection. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title31A/Chapter22/31A-22-S308.html

6. Utah Code § 31A-22-309, Limitations, exclusions, and conditions to personal injury protection. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title31A/Chapter22/31A-22-S309.html

7. Utah Code § 31A-22-305, Uninsured motorist coverage. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title31A/Chapter22/31A-22-S305.html

8. Utah Code § 31A-22-305.3, Underinsured motorist coverage. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title31A/Chapter22/31A-22-S305.3.html

9. Utah Code § 41-12a-301, Requirement of owner's or operator's security. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title41/Chapter12a/41-12a-S301.html

10. Utah Code § 41-12a-302, Operating motor vehicle without owner's or operator's security, penalty. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title41/Chapter12a/41-12a-S302.html

11. Utah Code § 41-12a-304, No-fault tort immunity ineffective. https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title41/Chapter12a/41-12a-S304.html