Arkansas Car Insurance Minimum Requirements
Arkansas requires at least 25/50/25 liability coverage. That is $25,000 for injuries to one person, $50,000 per accident and $25,000 for property damage.
- Shorthand
- 25/50/25
- Bodily injury — per person
- $25,000
- Bodily injury — per accident
- $50,000
- Property damage
- $25,000
- Uninsured / underinsured motorist
- Included unless you reject it in writing
Uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage has to be written into the policy at no less than the 25/50 limits unless a named insured rejects it in writing, and the rejection stands until it is withdrawn in writing (§ 23-89-403(a)). Buy liability limits above the minimum and the agent must offer you matching uninsured motorist limits. Underinsured motorist coverage is a separate election: the insurer must give you the chance to buy it, you reject it in writing, it must be at least 25/50, and it cannot be issued unless you also carry uninsured motorist coverage (§ 23-89-209).
- Personal injury protection (PIP)
- Must be offered; reject it in writing to go without
Arkansas is an at-fault state that still makes every private passenger policy carry a small no-fault layer. Each policy issued here must provide medical and hospital benefits, income disability benefits and an accidental death benefit, paid without regard to fault, to the named insured, family members in the household, passengers, and pedestrians or cyclists struck by the car (§ 23-89-202). The driver is not forced to keep them: a named insured may reject all or any one of the three in writing, and after that the insurer never has to mention them again at renewal (§ 23-89-203).
- PIP minimum limit
- $5,000
$5,000 per person for medical, hospital, nursing, dental, surgical, ambulance, funeral and prosthetic expenses incurred within 24 months of the crash. The other two parts stand on their own: income disability pays 70% of lost income up to $140 a week for as long as 52 weeks, starting on the eighth day after the crash, or $70 a week for a non-earner; the accidental death benefit is a flat $5,000 if death follows within a year (§ 23-89-202).
Arkansas sets $25,000 — higher than 23 of the 51 jurisdictions on this site. The range runs from $5,000 to $50,000.
How Arkansas compares with every other state
What these numbers buy you
Those first two numbers are two different walls, and drivers regularly mistake them for one. $25,000 is the most the policy pays for any single person's injuries. $50,000 is the ceiling for everyone hurt in the same crash put together. Injure one person badly and $25,000 is all your insurer owes, however large the bill. Injure three people and they divide $50,000 between them. Anything a court awards above those lines is yours to pay, and it does not go away when the policy runs out.
The $25,000 of property damage cover is the figure drivers look at last and need first. It pays for what you hit — the other car, a guardrail, a storefront — and nothing else. Only 2 states on this site set a higher one. Whatever the repair or replacement actually costs above $25,000 is not covered by this policy, and the difference is a debt in your name rather than your insurer's.
None of this is what Arkansas drivers actually spend. The average premium written per insured vehicle here was $466 in 2023, 14th highest of 51 states and DC — and that average covers policies far above the legal floor, not the bare minimum on this page.
Carrying the minimum is legal, not safe. It is the line below which Arkansas will not let you drive — and the penalties for falling under it are on the driving uninsured page.
Common questions
Is uninsured motorist coverage required in Arkansas?
Included unless you reject it in writing.
Is PIP required in Arkansas?
Must be offered; reject it in writing to go without.
Is full coverage required in Arkansas?
No. Collision and comprehensive — the two coverages people usually mean by "full coverage" — are not part of what Arkansas law requires. A lender or leasing company will usually require them until the car is paid off.
Every statute cited for Arkansas
What changed
August 5, 2025
Surplus lines insurance now counts as compulsory coverage and as proof of financial responsibility
Act 345 of 2025 (SB276) ran the phrase "or eligible" through the financial responsibility chapter. Arkansas Code § 27-22-104(a)(1)(B) now accepts a policy from an insurance company "authorized or eligible to do business in this state" as the compulsory liability coverage, and §§ 27-19-605, 27-19-712 and 27-19-713 were amended the same way so a surplus lines carrier's policy can also back a bond, a certificate of insurance filed with the Office of Driver Services, and the definition of a motor vehicle liability policy. The Act also widened the definition of "insurer" in the Arkansas Online Insurance Verification System Act (§ 27-22-202(4)) to match. The Governor approved it on March 20, 2025; it carries no emergency clause, so it took effect with the rest of the session's general acts 90 days after the General Assembly adjourned sine die. The governor signed it on 2025.03.20; with no emergency clause it took effect on 2025.08.05, ninety days after the session adjourned.
Arkansas State Legislature — Acts 2025, No. 345 (SB276), enrolled
Why the rule looks like this
- What Changed in 2026Liability minimums doubled in Hawaii, two states dropped pure comparative fault, New Hampshire stopped inspecting cars, and three crash reporting thresholds moved — a dated account of the 2026 changes, and the ones already signed for 2027 and beyond.
- Fifteen Thousand Dollars, or Two Hundred and Fifty ThousandThe legal minimum for injuring one person in a crash ranges from $15,000 in Pennsylvania to $250,000 in Michigan — and in Florida there is no bodily injury requirement at all.
More on Arkansas
Checked against the primary sources above on September 27, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.